


[Un]Expected

by beetle



Series: Mates and Matches [3]
Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Ultimateverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Attempted Nonconsensual Impregnation, Biology, Birth Control, But they were raised together, Consequences, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, F/F, F/M, Forbidden Love, Harry Osborn Jr. is a skeeve-bag, He does wrong-bad on purpose, Hormones, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Miles, Parker-cest, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Smut, Spideypool - Freeform, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Taboo, They're not brothers by blood, They've kinda always belonged to each other, When the chemistry is right nature gives no fucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-21 01:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: At twenty-two, Miles Parker is a talented, young illustrator whose recent, indie graphic novels are gaining in popularity. His star is ascending steadily, almost meteorically, in an industry (one of many) not known for tolerating or taking a chance on evenbrilliantomegas.He’s also recently engaged—secretly, despite said fiancé’s protestations—to one of the most eligible Alphas in New York City, Harry Osborn, Jr. After nearly two years of taking thingsveryslowly, then a sudden, but romantic proposal mere weeks ago, Miles is at last ready to move into J.R.’s penthouse. His parents, Peter and Wade Parker, couldn’t be more thrilled. The same could be said for Peter and Wade’s other children. Mostly. The twins, Ellie and Evan, and “baby” Doreen (who was adopted, just like Miles) are excited. The second oldest Parker-child—troubled, trouble-prone, particle physics prodigy Benjamin—is . . . less so. Or might be, if he hadn’t dropped quietly out of Miles’ life.But when things with J.R. go FUBAR suddenly and cataclysmically, Benjamin’s the only Parker available to perform some much-needed rescuing. However, the trend of FUBARing continues and the unexpected just keeps on happenin’.





	1. Seven and a Half Weeks Later

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Set sixteen years after the epilogue of “A Match of My Own.” A/B/O. Unplanned heat and mating (between main pairing). Tampering with birth control, attempted forced mating/breeding ( **not** between the main pairing). Parker-cest (though the Parkers in question aren’t related by blood)? Mpreg. Fallout and trauma from a series of poorly-considered choices and plain bad luck.

 

 

 

**Prologue: Seven and a Half Weeks Later**

 

Miles Parker groaned and flopped onto his side clumsily, pursuant to rolling to his feet and staggering near-blindly to his bathroom. There to evacuate the meager contents of his roiling, churning, violently nauseated stomach, as had been the recurring theme of every “morning” for the past three weeks.

 

“Morning” being whatever time Miles could fight off both the overpowering urge to sleep for the rest of ever, as well as avoid the apocalyptic dizziness and disorientation that came with trying to lurch even as far as his bathroom, upon waking.

 

This time, nearly twenty minutes of retching and dry-heaving produced little more than burning, acrid bile that abraded his throat and his sinuses—how it even got up there was not something Miles cared to speculate about—and made his trachea actually tremble and spasm.

 

By the time he felt safe enough to pick himself up off the floor, he was so dizzy that even though he wanted desperately to shower—it’d been at least four days since he’d had the strength or trusted his sense of stability to risk standing even for a quick hose-down—he didn’t dare to.

 

So, he flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and brushed his teeth, even though the toothpaste and mouthwash sent a last few heaves rippling through him.

 

Then, he staggered back to his tightly-shuttered bedroom and messy bed: the only place he ever seemed to be, anymore.

 

He knew he should eat something, or try. He hadn’t had an actual meal in over two days, and wasn’t even sure he had any edible food left. He hadn’t been together enough to make a short list for his grocery delivery service in nearly three weeks.

 

The very idea of _any_ sort of food just made him curl into a fetal ball, whimper, and weep.

 

Though . . . it probably wasn’t just the thought of food doing that.

 

He spent _most_ of his few wakeful moments weeping, these days. Silently, deeply, endlessly. He’d long since run out of sobs. Those took energy he no longer had and a voice that seemed to have deserted him. He hadn’t spoken at all since waking up the evening his heat was over. And he hadn’t said very much then—most of it stammered around the long-conquered rhotacism of his early childhood—but he’d said enough. Enough that he’d burned a bridge he should never have crossed in the first place.

 

Even now, on the backs of his sore, swollen eyelids, he could see Benjy’s pale, boyish face, flushed hectically at the cheeks, with his hair a crazy-spiky mess around it. Those wide hazel-green eyes flickering with new anger and hurt, but the same old yearning and intensity that still had the power to make Miles blush and shiver and _yearn right back_ —

 

Starting as he was jolted out of his traitorous daydream, Miles was reaching for his vibrating phone before it vibrated its way off his night table. He didn’t bother to unplug it from the charger, merely squinted his aching eyes open to see who was calling.

 

It was J.R. _Of course_ , it was. It had been for nearly six weeks, now . . . twice a day, like clockwork.

 

Oh, there’d been occasional calls from Miles’ parents—and a couple from the twins and a _bunch_ from Doreen, probably wanting to gush about her new boyfriend, Joe—which he’d never returned, except for brief texts and emails sent from his phone, making excuses and flat-out lying about why he was too busy to call or visit.

 

Aside from a few other calls from friends and from his long-time partner in graphic novel-crime, Ellen Phimister (who, at twenty-six, still wrote under the alias _Negasonic Teenage Warhead,_ from back in her underground ‘zine days), that was it for calls. Though, even hard-bitten _Ellen_ was starting to sound semi-concerned . . . for Ellen, anyway.

 

But there’d been relatively few attempts by the world to intrude on Miles’ downward spiral. And none of those attempts had been made by Benjy.

 

Not that Miles blamed him. For any of it—anything that he’d been dragged into by Miles’ quagmire-life and soap opera-problems.

 

Benjy was far better off away from Miles and all the disaster that'd seemed to be his inheritance, since the day he was born.

 

Dropping the once more quiescent phone on his night-table, Miles sniffled and moaned a bit, clutching his sore and still-churning abdomen. He _refused_ to think about what the soreness, nausea, disorientation, or any of the other textbook symptoms meant. What they were textbook _of_.

 

 _Please_ , he thought at the Ache. With a capital-A, as always. As if an Ache could be sentient, let alone reasoned with or merciful. _You clearly don’t want to be here and I’m not exactly thrilled about this mess, either. So, please go away? Please? You’ve got the wrong omega. The wrong_ person _. I can’t . . . I don’t . . . I’m not the one. I never wanted to be. The only reason you’re not still a gleam in Benjy’s eye is because Harry Osborn Jr. is a fucking prick and a controlling, conniving bastard, so . . ._ go away . . . _please?_

 

In reply, his stomach merely continued to churn and lurch and rumble, and the Ache seemed to grow more insistent, not less.

 

Miles closed his tear-blurred eyes on the late afternoon light leaking in through the spaces in the shutters. His eyes were so used to this sort of dimness, he could see his neat and Spartan surroundings quite clearly. Though he didn’t want to, and thus, the closing of his eyes.

 

But all the eye-closing in the world wouldn’t and couldn’t change the fact of the _Ache_. And the resulting dilemma of what to do about it . . . or about life after the most devastating and wonderful three days of his life. Or, on a smaller scale, what to do even about the fact that the sheets he was lying in were the same sheets he’d experienced his first unsuppressed heat in—been mated in and _bred_ in, just as cruel nature had intended for every omega.

 

Miles soon realized that if he’d had the energy, he _still_ wouldn’t have changed the linens. They still smelled strongly of sex and sweat, security and _Benjy_ , and Miles found all those scents as close to comforting as anything ever was, anymore.

 

Curling up into an even tighter ball of soreness and despair, Miles buried his face in his pillow, which also smelled pretty much the same as the sheets, only with the added and last hint of Benjy’s shampoo. Miles could only inhale and remember, and wish and shake. It wasn’t long before more tears leaked out. They kept doing so long after the golden glow stopped sneaking in between the slats of the shutters, and the room was immersed in total darkness.

 

They kept flowing even after Miles was lost to a deep, but troubled sleep that carried him well into the next morning.

 

#

 

Another day, or perhaps two or three, passed in a blur of fading nausea and soreness, and occasional, but increasing cramps and fits of shuddering so profound and jarring, Miles was vaguely frightened.

 

But he was also too tired and weak to do anything about it. Even when the abdominal cramps started waking him out of his self-imposed, then unstoppable marathon sleeps.

 

Finally, one morning just after dawn, he managed after half an hour of trying, to open his leaden eyes.

 

An hour after that, with bright, cheerful sunlight seeping in through every available crevice in the shutters, Miles also managed to turn his heavy head toward his night-table.

 

His vision was so blurry, he couldn’t read the time on his clock-radio’s digital display. And even if he’d had the energy to make a desperate grab for his phone, it’d long-since vibrated its way to the hard-wood floor.

 

With a scratchy, breathless grunt, he closed his eyes again, fairly certain that it might very well be for the last time. And though he _wasn’t sure_ how he felt about _that_ —he couldn’t quite remember how it felt to feel _anything_ , really—he only knew that he didn’t care to act to prevent it. Didn’t see the point of action on that or any other matter.

 

All he did—all he’d _ever_ done—was mess things up. Which wouldn’t have been so terrible, had it only been his own life the resulting chaos touched. But he’d pulled _Benjy_ in, too. And now. . . .

 

. . . now, the _Ache_.

 

Two tears, barely-there and lonely, rolled down Miles’ nose and cheek, racing sluggishly to a pillow that didn’t smell of anything, anymore. Or, perhaps it did. Miles barely had the wherewithal to keep taking breaths, let alone figure out what they smelled like.

 

And soon, he wouldn’t even have that, he supposed.

 

So be it.

 

As he sank numbly into his last slumber, grateful, at least, that this was an end to all of it—that he and his mistake of an existence would finally be out of everyone’s misery, he heard a distant knocking sound.

 

Determined to slip under the waves at last, Miles ignored it for an eternity, or tried to. But he found himself cheated of even a decent and necessary exit, because the knocking grew louder and louder and more insistent.

 

By the time it stopped, Miles’ eyes were open once more. His phone was also vibrating again, from somewhere on the floor next to his bed.

 

Then, that stopped, too. Miles blinked a few times, slow and labored, then sighed and let his eyes fall shut. . . .

 

Only to have to open them, _yet again_ , as a cool, beringed hand cupped his cheek with an awkward sort of tenderness.

 

It took a couple blinks to clear his vision, and when he did, he mouthed: _Ellen?_

 

The pale, dark-eyed writer looked, for once, neither ironic, bored, nor amused. No, instead she looked worried, shocked, and horrified.

 

“Of-fucking-course, it’s me! Who the fuck else’d make the fucking trek to fucking Cobble Hill to find out why _you_ went M.I.A., douche-canoe?” Ellen snorted harshly, but her thumb, where it stroked Miles’ cold cheek, was warm and gentle. “I hadda pick your locks to get in—Eff-Why-Eye? Your locks are shitty and you need a dead-bolt.”

 

Miles’ attempted a smile. Didn’t quite get there. But Ellen was going on, anyway, her eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring.

 

“Wow, is it just me, or. . . .” Ellen’s voice was suddenly as stricken and strangely young as her dark, dark eyes. Her shorn-fuzzy head tilted a little to the left as she _really_ took a _deep_ whiff. “Or do you smell kinda, uh . . . _pregnant_?”

 

This time, Miles’ managed an actual expression: his face scrunched up miserably. Just a little. And more tears leaked out of his tired eyes.

 

“Ahhh, _fuck_ , where the fuck is your _Alpha_ , Miles? Do they know you’re fucking _sick_?” she asked, her voice going stern and businesslike, though not quite into the realm of an _Alpha-demand_. Considering that Miles wasn’t _her_ omega, taking that particular tone would be _extremely_ gauche and bordering on sexual harassment. But, since he wasn’t being compelled, Miles’ only reply was more tears and a glance away. Ellen sighed, shaking her head and looking overwhelmed. “What the _actual fuck_ , Parker?”

 

“Tell,” Miles managed to husk and hitch out at great pains, his hands twitching. He licked his lips with a sandpaper tongue and forced out his last words. His bleary gaze focused on the air above Ellen’s right shoulder, then again on her worried, widening eyes. “Tell Benjy. Family. _Sowwy_.”

 

Ellen’s brows shot up and her hand fell away from Miles’ face. Even though he wasn’t pleased about this last gasp-return of his old speech impediment, he _was_ pleased that he got to say the only thing that mattered anymore. And he knew he could trust Ellen to deliver that message faithfully.

 

It was done.

 

He smiled and started to close his eyes again, at last drifting away into whatever final rest or oblivion awaited him. The bed shifted silently and Ellen’s voice sounded once more—distant, coming from nearer the closet than Miles—tight with control and fake calm, but slightly shrill, too:

 

“—maybe fucking _dying_ as we fucking speak! Him _and_ his fucking baby! So, yeah, dispatch a fucking ambulance to three-oh-four Walden Drive West, apartment three-fucking-eff, STAT, and walk me through keeping them alive till help gets here. . . .”

 

Miles made a soft, brief sound low in his throat that would’ve been a huff, had he been a bit livelier. Ellen was the only person he knew who swore more than Benjy. Even Peter and Wade Parker didn’t swear as much as their salty, second-oldest child. And _Ellen_ probably swore more than all the Parkers combined.

 

At this fond thought, as a sort of final request to his disordered mind, he tried to pull up a mental image of Benjy’s square-quirky-rakish face, and those keen-bright-changeable eyes with their unhidden yearning and no-holds-barred adoration. . . .

 

But he couldn’t. All he could see in his mind’s eye, was endless darkness.

 

Out of nowhere, a feeling so bleak and huge and agonizing washed over him, making it difficult to breathe. Forcing more tears from his closed eyes. Forcing his weary heart to beat out a tattoo it _couldn’t_ long support and, thus, _didn’t_.

 

Then Miles finally lost the plot entirely as darkness swooped in and devoured everything . . . including Miles, his heartbreak . . . and his Ache.

 

TBC


	2. HEAT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six days before he was to begin moving his things into J.R. Osborn’s Upper East Side penthouse apartment, Miles Parker woke up feeling . . . odd: hot-cold, wired, nervous, hyper-lethargic, and as if his skin was both itchy and too tight.
> 
> Even before he opened his eyes, he knew _something_ was very wrong. But considering he was so hard he ached, and desperate to be held down and _taken_ . . . that sense of wrongness was easily subsumed by his intensifying and thought-scattering arousal.
> 
> Little did Miles know—at that point—that this desperation and desire were at the very heart of what was so very _wrong_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Implied tampering with birth control. Unrepentant, attempted forced mating/breeding ( **not** between the main pairing). Altered mental state, due to heat/mating cycle and shock-trauma. Parker-cest pre-slash.

 

Six days before he was to begin moving his things into J.R. Osborn’s Upper East Side penthouse apartment, Miles Parker woke up feeling . . . odd: hot-cold, wired, nervous, hyper-lethargic, and as if his skin was both itchy and too tight.

 

Even before he opened his eyes, he knew _something_ was very wrong. But considering he was so hard he ached, and desperate to be held down and _taken_ . . . that sense of wrongness was easily subsumed by his intensifying and thought-scattering arousal.

 

Little did Miles know—at that point—that this desperation and desire were at the very heart of what was so very _wrong_.

 

“Baby,” he murmured, rolling over, meaning to nuzzle, fondle, and grind his fiancé awake for a slow, hard, good morning-screw. He could barely think beyond getting J.R. hard and desperate enough to play rough, maybe roll him over, pin him on his stomach, and ride him so hard that Miles’d be feeling it for a week after.

 

“Need you _so bad_ ,” he purred huskily, automatically reaching out for J.R.'s cock . . .

 

Only to open his eyes half a minute later to an empty right side of the bed and cool sheets.

 

Frowning, Miles rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was already sitting up and stretching petulantly before he remembered J.R. had that early meeting with his father. Although. . . .

 

A glance at J.R.’s clock-radio showed that it was just after noon.

 

Miles sighed. Knowing J.R.—and Harry and Norman—once they’d all got to talking Oscorp-shop, that’d been all she wrote for the rest of the day.

 

Sliding his hand down into his pajama bottoms, Miles sighed in relief as he took himself in hand and set up a slow, sustained stroke that was both thrilling and not nearly _enough_.

 

Grumbling, he shoved and kicked off the jammies, then felt under J.R.’s pillow for the lube they kept there. Once his fingers were slicked in the cool gel, he teased his balls and perineum until he was panting, then his asshole with two fingers that all but slid in with ease. _Unusual_ ease, because, despite the modicum of slick his body produced when he was aroused, Miles had always been tight enough that his partners—all two of them, including J.R.—almost always had to be careful about stretching him, then still work their way in slowly and patiently.

 

But _this_ morning, Miles simply assumed he was very relaxed and pressed forward quickly, grounding happily onto his fingers, and coming quickly thereafter—he didn’t even do more than make a pass at his prostate—with a surprised shout, before going dazed and limp. For about ten, breathless seconds.

 

He was still, oddly enough, fully hard and hungry for more.

 

By the time J.R. got home a little past mid-afternoon, distracted and already telling Miles about his day as he strolled into their bedroom, Miles was lying spread-eagled in the bed, sweating and panting and still hard. His body was shaking and, as he fucked himself with three tired fingers, he was staring up at the ceiling in confusion and disbelief. And horror.

 

Nonetheless, it was almost a full minute—and J.R. had divested himself of watch, cuff-links, and other accoutrements—before his fiancé even noticed. His back was to Miles as he untied his red and purple tie, but then he paused and turned around slowly, nostrils flaring as he trailed off and stared hard at his frantically active partner.

 

“I think,” Miles said with a calm that was belied by his distressed and aggravated body, then pulled out of himself with a whimper-grunt of loss, “I think I’m in heat, J.R. Yeah.”

 

Miles closed his eyes and watched colorful explosions on the backs of his lids until the bed dipped gently. Then, J.R.’s naked, gym-sculpted body was pressed against his side, just starting to get hard. Soft but heated kisses were pressed with possessive reverence to Miles’ shoulder, neck, and throat.

 

“Hmm, I think so, too,” J.R. rumbled in his most turned-on voice, his hand landing on Miles’s abdomen then drifting slowly lower. His scent, like leather and sandalwood and pennies, was slowly intensifying. “Yeah, you _smell_ like you’re in heat, babe, all sweet and musky. You smell . . . _amazing_. . . .”

 

Miles hissed when J.R. took his cock in a light, teasing grip, stroking a few times before fondling his balls lazily, then bee-lining past his perineum to Miles’ sore-stretched hole. He chuckled throatily when his first two fingers slipped right in and were accepted readily, greedily.

 

“ _Someone’s_ been naughty without his Alpha's permission,” he tsked almost negligently, not bothering with stretching or foreplay, just fucking Miles with his fingers, hard and deep, until Miles was writhing and mewling. Chuckling once more, J.R. kissed his way down Miles’ taut, tense body.

 

“Oh, my G-God,” Miles stuttered out as each jab at his prostate turned into a sharp-dull explosion of pleasure that made it difficult to think, let alone slur his fiancé’s name. “ _Jaaaayarrrrrrr_. . . .”

 

“Yeah, babe, I know . . . _God_ , you’re so fucking _hot_ like this! I can’t _wait_ to knot you. _Breed_ you. Been waiting _so long_ to make you mine. To sire a pup on you . . . the first of _many_ ,” J.R. said, all confidence and promise as he kissed Miles’ abdomen with a victorious smacking sound, then sat up. He shuffled and shifted them about until Miles was on his stomach, disoriented, and nearly dizzy with need and—weirdly—revulsion.

 

This . . . wasn’t right.

 

Not . . . not now. Not with J.R.

 

 _Maybe . . . maybe not_ ever _with J.R_., Miles acknowledged with sudden clarity as J. R. spread his legs, then fingered his asshole some more, rough and savoring, grunting and swearing.

 

“Tell me how bad you need this, baby,” J.R. commanded, smug in a way that used to turn Miles on but quite suddenly did the opposite. “Tell me how bad you need this Alpha-cock in your tight, wet little cunt like a fucking _pile-driver_.”

 

“J.R. . . . I . . . I’m _in heat,_ ” Miles reiterated, because he clearly hadn’t been heard the first time.

 

“Yep. Got the memo, gorgeous. Spread a little wider for Alpha, hmm? Gonna be _all_ up in you till we _collapse_.”

 

“I . . . I’m on suppressors. Have been since I was fifteen. And _I’m in heat_.”

 

“ _Fuck_ , you smell so sweet and needy, baby . . . gonna be good for me? Gonna be my sweet little omega for keeps?”

 

Miles hissed and grunted as J.R. pulled his fingers out rather carelessly, then smacked Miles’ ass hard. But before his fiancé could do more than that, Miles instinctively scrambled up against the headboard then quickly off the bed, banging his calf on J.R.’s night-table. He hopped back from the bed for several feet, rubbing his shin, then standing on it despite the pain.

 

J.R. merely watched him with wide, puzzled gray eyes.

 

“Uh,” he said, looking fairly ridiculous, naked but for his heather-gray socks and holding his hard, red dick in his left hand. But his wavy, light-brown hair was still perfectly smoothed in its usual, product-tamed undercut. Which Miles found laughable, even though he didn't laugh.

 

“I . . . I don’t want this,” he said in a voice that shook, but then firmed up. He backed away from the bed and his fiancé some more. “I _don’t_ want to be in heat. _Or_ to be bred!”

 

J.R. smiled reassuringly and didn’t make a single move toward Miles. He didn’t seem to think it necessary, even holding out his free hand as if Miles was a pet to come sniff it. “I know it’s a bit overwhelming, hot-stuff. But this is how it was _meant_ to be, all along. You were meant for this _and_ for me. To be an _Osborn_ , and the mother of my pups. And I know you’re gonna do _great_ at it. I’ve _always_ known . . . from the first time I saw you. Never doubted you for a second.”

 

Miles shook his spinning head. “I don’t want pups.” _Not with you or anyone, except maybe_. . . . “I’m not cut-out to be anyone’s mommy, and—and I _don’t_ want pups!”

 

“You _do_. You _will_ , once you get used to the idea. Once you stop fighting your biology. You’re an _omega_ , precious, and that means you’re _meant for motherhood_. I know you can’t see that now—knew you wouldn’t see or agree, this side of being pregnant. But _trust me_ , baby, you’re gonna be _so happy_ in a few months, you’ll wonder why you waited so long to get bred.”

 

Miles opened his mouth to protest once more, but puzzle-pieces started clicking together: things J.R. had said and done, just since entering their bedroom. His towering certainty and serenity regarding Miles coming around to his way of thinking, despite two years of Miles' unambiguous rejection of said thinking. . . .

 

And, most of all, the complete _lack_ of surprise the billionaire had evinced at his fiancé’s sudden miracle-heat. _That_ , most of all.

 

In the wake of this clicking-together, Miles didn’t doubt, for a moment, the picture on top of those joined puzzle-pieces. He _wanted_ to deny the truth, but the thing was . . . he knew J.R. Osborn far better than he’d been willing to admit to himself until this very moment.

 

He just hadn’t known—or hadn’t wanted to believe—that even he, J.R.’s fiancé, wasn’t beyond the Osborn ruthless grasping and manipulation. That need to _take all_.

 

Miles’ newest and worst fear was beyond a doubt true and factual. It had happened— _had been done_. Not because Miles had proof, but because he _knew this man_. Knew the arrogance that he’d told himself was charming and sexy. Knew the selfishness that he’d excused as common to all poor-little-rich-boys. Knew that like all the Osborn Alphas before him, J.R. was without boundaries or conscience when it came to making a desired outcome happen, by hook or by crook.

 

Miles didn’t know the _exact_ shape of the _all_ nadirs to which J.R. Osborn had or would sink, but he certainly had an inkling of the depths of _this_ nadir.

 

And considering J.R.’s forebears, was any of this truly a surprise?

 

 _No_ , Miles thought, instantly numb and lost. Paralyzed, but for his working, yet silent mouth.

 

“Babe?” J.R. asked, more curious than concerned. Miles shuddered and took a careful step forward. Not toward the bed, but toward the night-table, where his phone sat, for once not on the spare charger next to it.

 

Miles could only hope the battery was still holding a decent charge since he’d last plugged it in.

 

“You . . . you tampered with my suppressors, didn’t you?” he asked, once more with that eerie calm. Said calm was shaken when J.R.’s smile didn’t even falter. It was still charming . . . but more than a bit patronizing. Maybe it’d always been. “Or you switched them out with placebos, or . . . _something_. And you don’t even have the _common human decency_ to _look_ guilty or ashamed.”

 

“Because I’m not,” J.R. said simply, still charming and creepily reassuring. Then he sighed with fond exasperation, as if Miles was being adorably unreasonable, and patted the bed with lusty playfulness. “Now, don’t get _upset_ , Miles . . . you’re already hormonal because of your cycle. Just come back to bed and let me take care of you. You’re gonna feel so much better once I’ve knotted you and marked you.”

 

Miles barked a rueful laugh even as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’d sooner throw myself into a shark-tank, you _fucking prick_.”

 

Before the surprise even registered on J.R.’s handsome, remorseless face, Miles had already grabbed his phone and the charger, and made a run for the master bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

 

With the lock engaged, he slid down the door and sprawled on the cold, tile floor, sniffling and wiping his eyes. After a minute, when there wasn’t so much as a knock at the door, he held up his phone and touched the HOME key.

 

A grateful sob escaped him when he blinked away tears and saw he had seventy-four percent of his battery-life left.

 

Dropping the charger next to him, he unlocked his phone and started dialing.

 

The line was picked up halfway through the fourth ring and Miles let out another sob, this one of relief and hope. Closing his eyes, he laughed a little when a familiar voice said a distracted: “’Lo?”

 

“Dad! I—it’s Miles, and I . . . I really need you and Mom to come get me. I—I’m in some trouble and . . . I’m _scared_ ,” Miles blurted, sotto voice, in case J. R. was listening at the door.

 

There was silence on the other end for a few moments, then: “Actually, it’s Benjy, Miles. What kinda trouble? What . . . _where are you_?”

 

The next silence was markedly longer. Miles could only think: _Weren’t you in Geneva, as of a couple weeks ago? Finishing your dissertation? Making CERN regret giving you even _brief_ access to the Large Hadron Collider?_

 

The only sound that came out was a soft, surprised chuff that wasn’t quite a laugh or a sob.

 

“Miles?” Benjy’s voice was worried and hesitant, but it still _felt_ like safety. He really _did_ sound like Dad— _looked_ just like him, too, but for the color of his eyes, the extra height, and the mischievous quirk of his smirk—though with hints of Mom’s throaty-dry rasp. “ _Myze_? Talk to me, bro: where _are_ you? What’s happening?”

 

Shivering at the easy use of the name Benjy used to call him before he could pronounce “Miles” correctly—and had still called Miles up until a few years ago—Miles took a deep breath meant to steady himself . . . then started shaking and sobbing. And the worst part of _that_ was not that he was falling apart with his little brother as a witness, but that he was still hard and desperate and disoriented. Achy and itchy and hot.

 

“Benjy, he . . . he _did something_ to my suppressors—slipped me fake ones or something, I dunno—and now I’m in _heat_ and I feel _awful_ and it’s _scary_ and I don’t know if he’s gonna try to _force_ me to take his knot and get me _pregnant_ and I’m _scared_ and how could he _do this to me_ , Benjy?”

 

The minute following that glurt of information was also silent, but for Miles’ soft, helpless sobs. Then, Benjy spoke, his voice hard and brittle in a way Miles had never heard before.

 

 “You’re at Osborn’s?”

 

Miles nodded, then managed a quaking: “Y-Yes.”

 

Another tense silence. Then: “I’ll be there in half an hour, max. Will you be all right for that long, Myze? Will you be _safe_ . . . -ish?”

 

“I . . . I think so? I l-locked myself in the bathroom and he hasn’t tried to get in. . . .”

 

“Good. That’s . . . that’s good.” Benjy made a strange sound low in his throat, half-groan, half-growl. “That asshole motherfucker tries _anything_ , you call nine-one-one, y’hear? I’ll be there in half an hour if I have to _fly_ to you, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Miles whispered meekly, even more relieved and not just because help was on the way. He hadn’t heard Benjy’s voice in nearly two years and was surprised at how comforting it still was. How _missed_. He was reluctant to hang up. To let go. “Benjy?”

 

“Yeah, Myze?”

 

“He . . . he said he _loved_ me. That he wanted to take care of me and make me happy. Is . . . is that why he did it? Is _that_ why Alphas _do_ things like this? Did he . . . did he think this would . . . make me _happy_?” Miles asked quietly.

 

“I . . . I don’t know _what_ that shit-stain was thinking, Myze. And I don't know _all_ Alphas, either. I just know _me_. And Dad and Ellie, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Gwen. And I know none of _us_ would _ever_ do something like that to someone we claimed to love. _Never_ ,” Benjy said fiercely. “One _other_ thing I know is . . . an Osborn _is_ as an Osborn _does_. And even at their best . . . at their _least-terrible_ , they only love the bottom-line and themselves.”

 

Miles shuddered and another sob escaped him, tired and heartbroken. Benjy made a frustrated, unhappy sound in response.

 

“I'm sorry, Myze-honey . . . _so sorry_. But I’ll be there in a flash. _Half_ a flash, even. Okay, sweetheart? Just hold on, okay?”

 

“Okay, Benjy,” Miles said after another nod, closing his eyes tight.

 

And even after the call ended and the phone locked, Miles still clutched it like a life-preserver.

 

#

 

He’d actually dozed a bit in the surely illusory safety of J.R.’s large bathroom, when his erstwhile fiancé hadn’t bothered to even talk to him. Had, most likely, decided that Miles was simply being “hormonal,” and would soon come slinking back on his own, to take J.R.’s knot and claim and pup, when sense reasserted itself.

 

Or when his heat made him desperate enough and crazy enough.

 

Miles instantly snapped awake, however, when he heard yelling, semi-distant, but definitely within the penthouse. He scrambled to his feet, still hard and aching because of it. He was clutching at the phone and the attached charger so tight, he thought he could hear the former creak. His head was still spinning and as he recognized J.R.’s unusually raised voice, he cringed and shuddered, hugging himself tight.

 

The yelling had gone on for almost two minutes, back and forth, before Miles realized that the _other_ voice was _Benjy’s_.

 

“ _BENJY_!” he shouted and kept shouting, heart lifting and racing as he pressed himself against the door. As if doing so could make his voice carry. And maybe it did, because the yelling stopped and in seconds, right on the other side of the door, was Benjy’s voice, frantic and angry and relieved.

 

“Myze? Sweetie, baby, you okay?” he asked in a rush, sounding as if he was pressed against the door, too. “It’s—it’s me, baby! It’s Benjy!”

 

“I _don’t_ wanna be here anymore,” Miles moaned, leaning his forehead against the door, as well, as his strength temporarily deserted him. “This place feels _wrong_.”

 

“Goddamn right it does, sweetheart.” In the pause that followed, Miles could hear Benjy’s heavy, measured breathing. “Open the door and I’ll get ya outta this shit-pit so fast, we’ll drag half this boring-lame, Nouveau Riche décor with us!”

 

Laughing even as he wept, Miles unlocked the door and opened it a bit, peering out warily.

 

Then, he was swinging it wide and flinging himself into Benjy’s long, strong, warm arms. _That_ was something that had always felt right and always _would_. Benjy held him tight, whispering and murmuring against his temple, between dry, lingering kisses. He smelled like oranges and incense and _rightness_.

 

“Can we go, now? Please? I wanna go _home_ ,” Miles whispered. Benjy hugged him tighter for a few moments before letting go just enough to look Miles over. His eyes widened as he noticed Miles was naked and hard, and he blushed, then dragged his eyes back up to Miles’ face, making a point of not glancing down again.

 

“Ahhh,” he huffed out, turning redder, his hands tight-loose-tight on Miles’ biceps. His Adam’s apple bobbed ceaselessly. “Yeah, _of course_ , Myze. _Anything_ you want. You want outta here? We’re _gone_ : adios, bye-bye. But, ah, first . . . clothes?”

 

Frowning, Miles looked down at himself, then up at Benjy, who was maroon, now.

 

Then, he looked halfway across the bedroom. J.R. stood in front of the picture window, near the part in the tasteful, cream-colored drapes. He was now partially dressed in a pair of distressed, gray jeans that had probably cost more than Miles had made off his last graphic novel in total.

 

And he was watching them with confused disbelief—then narrowed and accusing eyes.

 

“You goddamned hypocrite,” J.R. spat, his gaze settling on Benjy as he shook his head and laughed incredulously. “You _psychotic-fucking-pervert_!”

 

Benjy stiffened, his gaze lowering and cold, shifting from bright hazel to dark gray as it caught the sterile light spilling from the bathroom.

 

“You get dressed and grab whatever else you wanna take with you, sweetheart, ‘kay? So we _never_ have to come back here,” he said: a gentle Alpha-command that was no less firm for all that Benjy’s stony-angry glare was laser-focused on J.R.

 

Miles nodded, glancing at J.R. again, before scurrying to the closet J.R. had designated as _his_. Two sets of eyes watched him fill the suitcase in which the few changes of clothes in said closet had been brought over. But for the sweatpants and overlarge sweater that Miles had worn the day before. He pulled on the sweater first then, after checking to make sure his wallet and keys were still in the pockets, he hastily pulled on the sweats. The still mostly charged phone and charger immediately went into his left pocket.

 

When he was dressed, he edged warily toward the bed, and grabbed his jammie bottoms, socks, and flipflops from the floor near the night-table. Those, too, went into the suitcase. Finally, Miles dared one last, betrayed glance at J.R., who was now staring out the window, his face a distracted and disinterested mask. Miles didn’t know if there was anything left to say, and even if there was . . . he didn’t know _what_ , or how to express it. So, he turned away from his former fiancé and found Benjy watching him with worried, tender eyes.

 

And when Benjy reached for the suitcase, Miles let him have it with an attempt at a smile. The once more falling tears probably lessened the effectiveness of said smile, however.

 

“I’m ready,” he said, swallowing around a lump in his throat. But his voice was steady. “Let’s go.”

 

“Sure thing. Gotta put your sneaks on first, though, Myze-away. _Then_ we’re in the wind, okay?” Benjy promised, returning the smile and waggling his eyebrows comically. Miles’ smile firmed up and he nodded. In less than a minute, he was slipping his feet into his right sneaker. Then the left, seconds after that.

 

With another warm, enveloping smile, Benjy slipped an arm around Miles’ waist and squeezed him close. He pressed a lingering kiss to Miles’ temple then, with his hand settled low on Miles’ back, he led them to the bedroom door, swinging the suitcase jauntily.

 

“Ask yourself, if you’re Alpha enough to, Parker: Are you playing the knight in shining armor for _your brother’s_ sake? Or your own?” J.R. said quietly, but it carried. It was _heard_.

 

It was a _scored hit_ , in a way Miles was too distracted and flustered and antsy to parse.

 

Benjy paused stiffly at the door for a few seconds, then spoke, calm and tight and through gritted teeth. “If you _ever_ touch Miles again, Osborn . . . I’ll kill you with my bare-fucking-hands.”

 

Then, at Miles’ nervous, urgent clutching of his free arm, and his murmured: “Let’s _go_ , Benjy. _Please_ ,” Benjy got him the _hell_ out of that place forever.

 

Miles left _nothing_ behind him, but the latest in a long line of stone-faced, miserable Osborn scions and a barely-dodged bullet.

 

TBC


	3. RUT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue-mission goes off without a hitch. Miles and Benjy escape J.R. Osborn’s nefarious clutches and, despite Benjy’s worry, go to Miles’ apartment, rather than to the E.R. Their reconnection after years apart is quick and easy. And _intense_. Old patterns are reestablished and new ones show every sign of taking dangerous root. Caught in each other’s orbits as they’d been from the very beginning, reconnection proves a slippery slope, indeed. For good or ill—better or worse—Miles and Benjy experience and share their first unsuppressed heats and ruts. Together. And it _could_ go _far worse_ . . . but it could also go a lot _better_ , too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Parker-cest (though the Parkers in question aren’t related by blood). Unplanned heat and mating between main pairing. Awkward, rough, painful sex. Altered mental states, due to heat/mating cycle and shock-trauma.

The elevator ride down to the garage level of J.R.’s high-rise was interminable.

 

Miles still clung to Benjy, cold and shivering, despite the heat under his skin and the light sheen of sweat that just wouldn’t dry. Unlike his mouth and throat, which felt like a dustbowl. Tears occasionally leaked from his eyes, the lids of which were swollen. Every so often he shuddered, and Benjy would hold him a bit closer and tighter.

 

His strong, sheltering arm was the only thing that made sense in Miles’ entire world, anymore. His scent—brighter than orange peels, deeper than musk, and more sacred than incense—was comfort and reassurance and _foundation_.

 

Salvation.

 

“Yeah, it’s me, Burn-out. You’re still here, right? Still in the same—okay, yeah. Good. Yeah. I got him. He’s . . . rattled, to put it delicately. _Of course_ , he is. Fucking J.R. Osborn,” Benjy growled. When Miles raised his heavy, spinning head to squint up at him—despite otherwise looking almost _exactly_ like Dad, Benjy was three inches taller . . . and less than one-quarter of an inch shy of _Mom’s_ six-two-and-a-half—the younger man was on his phone, eyes narrowed as he glared at the digital number-readout above the elevator doors. A vein in his left temple was throbbing visibly and the left side of his mouth had acquired a minute tic. “Anyway, we’re on our way to the garage. Should be there in another minute. Then we gotta get to an E.R., and—”

 

“ _No_ , Benjy . . . please, no,” Miles whispered, leaning into Benjy, who looked down at him, his stony profile instantly turned into a too-young, too-vulnerable full portrait. That expression made Miles ache and churn keenly, in places so deep and intangible, they’d previously only registered as soul-pangs. “No hospital . . . just wanna go _home_.”

 

Benjy blinked and started to speak. Closed his mouth, then cleared his throat. “We’ll be down in a hot minute, Burn. Hang chilly.”

 

Then he locked his phone and shoved it in the right pocket of his faded jeans. He gave Miles a once-over of critical assessment and worried uncertainty.

 

In that moment, he looked even younger than his nineteen years. Looked even younger than he had the last time Miles had seen him: glaring at Miles and J.R. from across the Parker dinner-table . . . the only one not eating and talking, laughing and participating.

 

The next evening, during a call home, Mom had told Miles that Benjy, their late-blooming “Baby Boy,” had finally gone into his first rut. And . . . it hadn’t been going well. Not at all.

 

Wade had sounded . . . concerned, to say the least. Tired and scared. And he’d been right to be, as the seeming apex of Benjy’s first rut had come with sedation and restraint, and a police-escort to a mental health facility. A place where Benjy would be a guest for over a month, then a frequent visitor afterwards, while he finished earning his masters and fought to control sometimes weekly mini-ruts—and not so mini-ruts—that came with such frequency and force, his doctors weren’t certain it wasn’t part of one long rut-cycle.

 

No one had seemed to have any answers or any real insight into Benjy's “condition.” And certainly, no cure or even suppressors that Benjy’s “ultra-Alpha” system—the shrugging use of such clinical and _professional_ terms had been _so_ heartening to all involved—didn’t throw off like an annoyed dog shaking off rain drops.

 

But in the beginning of Benjy's tenure at _Restful Acres_ , when Miles had hesitantly asked to join his parents and younger sibs for visits, Dad and Mom had shared a heavy glance, then Dad had gently, but firmly refused for them both, saying: _Benjy wouldn’t want you to see him like this. You’re his_ Myze _, his big brother. His_ favorite _. And your good opinion is . . . everything to him. He wouldn’t want you to see him like this. . . ._

 

Miles had accepted that, though it hadn’t set well with him. Had accepted, without a reason or confrontation, that neither of his parents seemed able to look him in the eye for a _long_ time after that conversation. And, before he’d known it, six months _and_ Benjy were gone. Half-way around the world and working on his doctorate before the ink on his master’s thesis had dried.

 

He hadn’t even sent a good-bye email or text.

 

“Myze . . . _Miles_ ,” Benjy began, now, and Miles blinked away more tears.

 

“You went away and you didn’t even say good-bye,” he accused, and now it was Benjy who blinked, confused for a moment. Then his gaze turned comprehending . . . and faltered, guilty and miserable. “You left me and didn’t even tell me you were planning to go. I didn’t find out till three days after you’d left. Dad and Mom took me for fucking _enchiladas and churros,_ like they used to when we were _little_ and they had something to tell us we wouldn’t like.”

 

Still not meeting Miles’ gaze, Benjy sighed. “Miles, I . . . I’m _sorry_. I shouldn’t have . . . I should’ve cowboyed-up and told you myself, but I couldn’t . . . I just _couldn’t_. And I’m _so sorry_. But there’re more important things to deal with right now than my issues and my craven-fucking-cowardice. You were taken off suppressors _without_ being weened and monitored, and now you’ve gone into a reactionary heat that’s already . . . pretty intense, for something I’m assuming started today.” Nostrils flaring, Benjy made a strange, almost whining sound low in his throat and held Miles closer for a few moments, before letting go entirely, and taking a slow breath in through his mouth. “It’s just gotten started and you _already_ smell like you’re apexing. Like. . . .”

 

“I feel _weird_ ,” Miles agreed hesitantly, but miserably, listing into Benjy again as his eyes fluttered shut. That arm instantly went around him once more, trembling but still so very reassuring. Right and steadying. “Like my mind is hovering twenty feet above my body. Everything’s too far away . . . and too _close_.”

 

“And that’s why we’ve gotta get you to the E.R., sweetheart,” Benjy whispered roughly. “We’ve _gotta_ make sure—”

 

“I just wanna go home. _Need_ to be home,” Miles said in a flat voice which nonetheless broke. “Please just take me home, Benjy?”

 

“Okay,” Benjy replied, quiet and resigned, after a silent, infinite minute had limped by.

 

Then, the doors opened and he lead Miles through the underground parking lot, past expensive cars and a few empty spots, and finally to an idling, late model sedan. It was silver and pristine, but for a small, gold and red **_Ryde!_** sticker on the right rear door.

 

Benjy opened the right rear door and handed Miles in carefully, then put the suitcase in, too. He hesitated for a few seconds, before folding his long frame and sliding in after it. When he picked up and dumped the suitcase in the front passenger seat, Miles instantly sidled closer and closer, until he was huddled against Benjy’s side, that sheltering-arm around him once more.

 

“Ready to haul ass when you are, Burn-out,” Benjy half-mumbled into Miles’ close-cropped hair.

 

“You got it, Glitch! You’re just lucky I’m not on shift, yet, is all,” a brassy alto practically sang from the driver’s seat. Miles opened his tired eyes and blinked at dyed, blue-black hair standing out in spikes, and neon-pink eyes—contacts—peering at him from a face the color of walnuts, and lined with curiosity and concern.

 

It took Miles another couple of seconds to place this striking **_Ryde!_** driver, but when he did he almost smiled.

 

“Julie Chaiprasit?”

 

That earned Miles a big grin. “Ah-ffirmative, Miles-erino! You remember me!” The young beta sounded pleased and touched, and Miles _actually_ smiled. Just a little.

 

“I do. The first time I babysat you and my idiot-genius little brother, you two terrors melted our parents’ microwave because he was trying to disprove the First Law of Thermodynamics. That’s . . . not something one quickly—or ever—forgets,” he added dryly, and said idiot-genius little brother held Miles tighter and huffed haughtily. Julie, however, just grinned bigger and sparkled brighter.

 

“Pssh! And we _mighta_ disproved it, too, if _you_ hadn’t gone ninja-apeshit with that fire extinguisher!” she claimed, and Miles snorted, rolling his eyes.

 

“That’s me. Cock-blocking scientific advances and innovations since twenty-twenty-three.”

 

“ _That's_ what's up! Ha!” On that laugh, Julie gunned it out of the parking lot at speeds that Miles found _beyond_ unwise, straight to downright alarming. Especially when combined with the infrequency of the intervals at which her eyes focused on the way ahead . . . rather than the rearview mirror, and Miles and Benjy. “You seem pretty lively for someone who’s emergency room-bound, Miles-ster!”

 

Biting his bottom lip, Miles looked up at Benjy and found the younger man looking right back.

 

“Change of plans, Burn-out,” he finally said, ostensibly to his life-long best friend and partner-in-mad-science-and-general-mayhem. But his eyes—his entire being—seemed bent on Miles.

 

With a _full_ and genuine smile, Miles buried his face in Benjy’s shoulder, inhaling his scent, like warmed citrus, musk, and myrrh. “Thank you,” he murmured.

 

At last totally calmed and reassured, he didn’t look up once—which worked out well, considering Julie’s _creative_ interpretation of common road-rules—the whole ride to his apartment.

 

#

 

“Knock-knock.”

 

Miles looked up from where he was perched, on the edge of his bed. Benjy was standing in the doorway, waggling a bottle of flavored vitamin-water and a protein bar, grinning like an idiot. Miles chuckled and Benjy stepped into his bedroom—paused to glance around at Miles’ various illustrations and panels crowding the walls with a wondering smile—then continued his ambling approach until he was sitting next to Miles.

 

Miles took the water with a murmured: “Thanks,” after Benjy opened it for him. He then took a few cautious sips. It was some sort of raspberry-flavor, one that Miles’ didn’t even recall ordering when he made his last delivery list for the supermarket. But it was tasty and refreshing, and he’d finished a third of it before he stopped to take a breath. Benjy was the one to chuckle, this time, and wave the protein bar like he was about to perform a lame magic trick. Miles rolled his eyes.

 

“Ugh, you’re worse than Ellen’s stepdad, with that crap,” he accused, waving away the bar. He guzzled a few more big swallows that finished another third of the bottle then capped it. Benjy smirked and tossed the protein bar at Miles’ night-table. “Piotr’s always trying to foist breakfast bars and trail mix on us whenever we see him. Like we’re twelve, and apparently about to be hiking or running a marathon.”

 

Benjy’s smirk widened from smart-ass sardonic, right to little-shit annoying. “He sounds like a wise and caring man, who is _also_ wonderful and handsome. Kinda like _me_ , I suppose? Only not _quite_ as much with the wonderful and handsome, I’m thinking. Obviously.” Benjy waggled his eyebrows ridiculously and leveled an over-the-top-debonair smile at Miles, who laughed and blushed.

 

“Oh, _obviously_ ,” he agreed laconically, blatantly humoring his nonetheless _brilliant_ brother’s charmingly self-aware overconfidence as if no time had passed since they’d last indulged in this familiar dynamic. He didn’t realize he was listing and leaning toward Benjy, and that Benjy was doing some listing and leaning right back. But when their arms touched, Benjy jumped away and Miles looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. Benjy looked unsettled and uncertain, even in profile. He was staring at his knees as if they posed a confounding problem, and swallowing anxiously. Repeatedly.

 

When Miles shyly offered him the last of the vitamin-water, Benjy took it, casting a brief sideways glance and grateful smile at Miles before knocking back the last of it in one long swallow. Then he capped and free-threw the bottle at Miles’ bedside wastebasket. It was, of course, nothing but net. Miles smirked, fleeting and tired.

 

“Look . . . about what Osborn tried to do, Miles. . . .” Benjy began reluctantly, a charged minute later, and Miles shook his head once.

 

“I don’t wanna talk about that now.” _Or ever_.

 

Benjy sighed, but let the subject drop. He was clearly still thinking about it, though. A _lot_.

 

Miles, however, found that his mind refused to drift back to any point of this day before getting into Julie’s car. The break-neck drive to Miles’ apartment. Benjy’s arm around him the whole way, his scent ever-present and soothing. The amusing soundtrack of Julie’s bright chatter about some of her weirder fares and passengers.

 

They’d quickly, though not quickly enough for Miles’ peace of mind, arrived at his building. After warm, fond good-byes to Julie and a promise to put in an appearance online in their _Call of Duty_ gamer-geek circle, Benjy had ushered Miles to the third floor of his walk-up. It hadn’t been long before Benjy was shutting and locking the door behind them, mumbling: “Your locks are _lame_ , big bro. You need a dead-bolt. Or at least a dedicated chair to wedge under the knob when you’re home.”

 

“Haha, jerk-butt,” Miles had said around a yawn, already pulling off his sweater with unusual disregard for where he flung it. He was halfway to his bathroom, fingers hooked in the sprung waistband of his sweats, when he remembered his manners. “Make yourself at home, _mi casa es_ . . . I’mma . . . I _really_ need to shower.”

 

Benjy’s acknowledging murmur had been low and unintelligible. And Miles had already been closing the door to the bathroom, anyway.

 

He’d cleaned himself quickly, efficiently, as ever, avoiding his persistent hard-on and his slick, throbbing entrance, other than for some grit-toothed moments to clean them. He hadn’t even questioned or examined his decision not to get himself off in the shower. He’d known it wouldn’t help much even if he _could_ come without an Alpha’s knot, which he doubted. Even if he’d fingered himself raw, _nothing_ but the real thing would help this desire, this ache, this _need_.

 

Nothing. . . .

 

And then, he’d suddenly been thinking about _Benjy_. About Benjy maybe hearing him masturbating. Smelling his arousal and need, and knowing what Miles was doing . . . maybe _responding_. . . .

 

Maybe . . . maybe even confronting him during. And then. . . .

 

Miles had shaken himself out of this reverie as he’d realized that he could not only smell his own pheromones despite the body-wash and hot water, but he could smell his own _slick_ , high and thicker than it’d ever smelled, honey-sweet and elusively floral.

 

After another, near-frantic once-over with plenty of body-wash and hot water, until he hadn’t been able to smell much of anything below the suddenly harsh, sinus-prickling, chemical-scent of the body-wash, Miles’d hurried to dry off. Had brushed his teeth—avoiding his own reddened-wounded gaze in the mirror—then hurried out of the humid-hot bathroom into his chilly-dry bedroom to pull on his pajama bottoms.

 

And, drained, he’d sat on his bed, staring into space and thinking about nothing at all until Benjy had appeared, bearing water and protein.

 

Now . . . he was once more shaken from his brooding and numbness by Benjy’s larger, longer hand on his own, warm and gentle. He looked up into those flickering gold-green-brown-blue eyes and found a smile, as he almost always had, and Benjy returned it somewhat desperately.

 

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, squeezing Miles’ hand, his thumb sweeping along Miles’ palm even as _his_ palm warmed Miles’ knuckles. “You, uh . . . you smell . . . calmer? Steadier? Less . . . sharp and urgent. _Softer_ and _sweeter_. I—are you okay, Myze?”

 

“Mmhmm. . . .” Miles hummed, his eyes fluttering shut as he let himself be drawn closer to Benjy and Benjy’s strong-right-Alpha scent. He’d always smelled this way, to a greater or lesser degree, but . . . never quite as _greater_ as he did in _this_ moment.

 

When callused-tender fingertips grazed Miles’ right cheek with trembling reluctance, his eyes fluttered open. Benjy’s were very close, shining and wide and stunned.

 

“Your skin is so soft, so _gorgeous_. It always . . . _you_ always . . . _glow_ ,” he said, choked and strained-sounding. But his fingers never stuttered in their appreciative glide. Not even as they brushed across Miles’ mouth. Rather, they didn’t until Miles’ parted his lips as Benjy’s fingers reached the halfway point across his mouth.

 

They both groaned softly and Miles drew in a deep, shaking breath, even as he held Benjy’s gaze, his own as naked and open as he’d never dared to let it be. As moments turned into minutes, with Benjy obsessively tracing Miles’ lips with his fingers, Miles could smell the sudden jump in pheromones—the intensifying of their scents as those scents fed off each other and merged. The scent of his own slick trickling out of him in a slow confession of his state.

 

“You’re even _more_ beautiful than I imagined, y’know?” Benjy exhaled, his cheeks flushed, but the rest of his square, strong face _pale_. “And I’ve been imagining you just like this since I was eleven. Been _wanting so bad_ , that I . . . _fuck_ Osborn for what he tried to do to you, Myze, but so help me . . . I can understand the _temptation_ to have you in a way no one can contest or challenge. I understand the imperative to make you _mine_ and be your Alpha at all costs. I don’t _condone_ that sort of obsessive _need_ and possessiveness, that . . . _willful, selfish sickness_. Not in others _nor_ in myself. I _never_ have. But I understand it all too easily. . . .”

 

He fell silent and his brow furrowed as he stared at Miles’ lips, his gaze hungry and guilty in equal measures. Though hunger quickly started edging out guilt, and Miles’ body responded unequivocally.

 

“Benjy,” he murmured, moving so close their noses were almost brushing and Benjy’s breath, redolent of apples, bananas, and peanut butter—because, apparently, Benjy’s idea of a meal was still the sort of _Lunchables_ -fare that he’d lived on since he was four, when Mom’d finally given up on trying to get him to eat _normal people_ -meals—and hot as a forge, as it puffed on Miles’ face.

 

“But I _still_ woulda, y’know? Or . . . _coulda_ , anyway. Claimed you.” Benjy shivered and Miles closed his eyes as warm, slightly-chapped lips pressed the spot between his eyebrows, lingering like a long-overdue benediction. “If I’d had my druthers, I’d have taken you and marked you, _right there_ in Osborn’s bedroom, with him staring on and eating his black-fucking- _heart_ out. I’d have knotted you and claimed you—kept you and _protected_ you—forever, if. . . .”

 

“If?” Miles felt as if his insides were quaking—as if he, himself, was on the edge of a precipice overlooking an abyss from which, if he let himself fall, he’d _never_ again see daylight. And everything was _strange_ again. Hazy-bright, crystalline, and confused. Their combined and twined scents smelled like _everything_. Were mixing and merging and _mating_ in a way that their bodies hadn’t. _Yet_.

 

Yet.

 

Miles whimpered and _wanted_. He didn’t even care what actually _was_ right anymore, only what _felt_ right.

 

 _Benjy_ felt right. He’d never felt anything else, no matter how crazy and chaotic the rest of the world had gone.

 

“If . . . it wasn’t _wrong_ to want you like that. If _I_ wasn’t so wrong . . . so _sick_. If you weren’t my _brother_. If . . . if you wanted _me, as well,_ ” Benjy ended miserably, his humid breath puffing on Miles’ face once more as he started to sit back. “If _you_ wanted, Myze, I’d be your Alpha for as long as there was breath and _fight_ in me.”

 

Reaching up to cup Benjy’s face in cool, shaking hands, Miles leaned in and up, until his words, when he spoke, where more brushes of Benjy’s bitten lips, than shaped sounds and pushes of breath.

 

“ _Alpha_ ,” he announced, making a claim of his own with naked simplicity and unhidden hope. “ _My_ Alpha.”

 

“Yes,” Benjy sighed, trying half-heartedly to lean back, but Miles held on. Held on the way he always _should have_. The way he’d always _wanted_. “If you let me, damn the consequences and ethics, I’d be _your Alpha_ —your _mate_ till the end of time.”

 

“You’re _already_ my Alpha, Benjy. Already my mate. Already _mine_ ,” Miles told Benjy, both gentle reassurance and iron-hard avowal. Then he closed the distance between their mouths and bodies with a desperate lunge. With arms flung around Benjy’s neck and a hard, uncoordinated, _claiming_ kiss.

 

Though shock froze him for a few moments while Miles sucked and bit his way through a kiss that was more teeth than tenderness, it wasn’t long before Benjy was kissing back just as hard. Then _harder_ , his big hands clamping tight on Miles’ waist.

 

Miles moaned, his arms winding tighter around Benjy’s neck, hauling him down closer, then trying to pull the larger man down to the bed, on top of him. It almost worked, but then Benjy froze again, before pulling out of Miles’ arms and pushing him away by his biceps. Benjy's face was flushed, his eyes wider and brighter than ever, studying Miles with fear-laced desire, as if Miles had become an incubus.

 

“Listen, Myze . . . _Miles_ . . . this . . . we _can’t_. . . .” he started to say, but trailed off, his eyes lingering at the hard-on tenting out the crotch of Miles’ jammies. He licked his lips and clearly forced himself to meet Miles’ gaze. “I . . . _I can’t_. We’re . . . _you’re_ in heat and I’m . . . I'm _sick_. And I should go, before I. . . .”

 

“Beeeeeenjy, please,” Miles hissed, darting in to steal more kisses that Benjy didn’t encourage, but didn’t stop, either. Miles nipped biting kisses that he then laved, down Benjy’s stubbly throat. His skin tasted like salt and citrus. Like margaritas. Miles giggled a little, wondering if that was why he felt so _drunk_. So wonderfully free and easy and _happy_. “Please stay? _Please_? I need you to staaaaay with me. I _need_. . . .”

 

“God, _Myze_ . . . I _know_ what you need, sweetheart, but . . . _I_ shouldn’t be the one to give it to you.” Benjy's heavy hands slid up Miles’ biceps to his shoulders. Those normally bright, hazel eyes seemed to be the color of old lead, and bleak with rue and regret. “I _shouldn’t_.”

 

“Even though you _want to_?” Miles pouted, then leaned in again, slowly. As he’d hoped, Benjy’s hands didn’t restrain him, merely slid back to his biceps to grasp and squeeze. Miles nuzzled Benjy’s left cheek, to his jaw and neck and throat, where his scent was _so_ strong, it rendered thinking all but impossible. “Even though you’ve _always_ wanted to, and . . . and _I’ve always wanted you to_?”

 

Benjy growled, rough and frustrated. “Miles . . . this is the heat talking, not _you_ —”

 

Miles leaned back to gaze up into Benjy’ changeable eyes again. They weren’t leaden, anymore, but a molten, dancing-capricious bronze.

 

“I want you, and I have for _so long_ , Benjy . . . so long. All I can think about when I’m around you, is how it’d feel to touch you the way I’ve always wanted. How it would feel if you were _my_ Alpha. What it would be like if I wore _your_ claim and scent. If I went into heat to take _your_ knot and carry _your_ children . . . _Benjy_. . . .”

 

Those wide, shining eyes were frantic and desperate. “Fuck, Myze, you don’t even _want_ kids! You’ve always said you were never gonna be a ‘breeder-bitch’ whose ‘only purpose and joy was shooting out pups for some asshole Alpha’!” Benjy reminded him around a barked-out laugh. Miles’ smile was pained and trembling.

 

“I only ever said that because if I couldn’t be _your_ breeder-bitch and shoot out _your_ pups . . . then I didn’t want _any_ of that. Asshole. But _now_ . . . look, all I’ve _ever_ wanted was to be _your omega_ , Benjy. To be your _mate_. But I didn’t think . . . I was too afraid to . . . I was _scared_. Of the cost of being yours and mated to you. Of what people would think and say. Of how bad I need you and how _deep_ that need runs. But . . . _I’m not scared anymore_.”

 

“Only because you’re in heat and I’m just the nearest Alpha with . . . agreeable chemistry, Myze.” Benjy looked down and shook his head, weary and defeated. A bolt of pain so keen and massive, it almost literally cleaved Miles in two, struck him at seeing an Alpha— _his Alpha_ —so bowed and tired and hopeless.

 

“You know that’s not true,” Miles said, low and creaky and certain, reaching up to cup Benjy’s strained, pale face in his hands once more. When Benjy’s eyes met his, he sighed. “Not for me and not for you. It’s never been _just chemicals_.”

 

Benjy took a slow breath in and tried again. “You’re my brother—”

 

“No, I’m not.”

 

Heaving another weary sigh, Benjy smiled bitterly. “Maybe not by blood, Miles, but—”

 

“Benjy . . . we were raised together, in the same family and house, but I’ve _never_ been your brother. I’ve always been your _omega_. And _you’ve_ always been my Alpha. From the moment we met and until the day we die. No matter how much distance we put between each other or how hard we pretend that what’s between us has _ever_ been brotherly or platonic, we’ll always belong to each other exactly like this. Exactly like this.”

 

Groaning, Benjy started to hang his head again, but Miles wouldn’t let him. He held on until Benjy looked into his eyes again. The keen hazel of Benjy's gaze was almost cloudy, and certainly wet and ashamed. “You’re only making sense because I _want_ so badly for the things you’re saying to _make sense_ ,” he whispered.

 

“Please claim me, Benjy,” Miles implored, stealing a soft, sweet, almost chaste kiss that made them both shudder, hard and prolonged. “If _sense_ is the thing that’s been keeping us apart for all our lives, then _claim me now,_ before we both come back to it!”

 

And when he looked up into Benjy’s wide, hazel eyes, they seemed to clear. Harden. Flare and burn. Maybe literally, too, as the tears of a minute ago were gone as if they’d evaporated. He no longer looked torn and guilty and miserable. No longer looked _ashamed_. He didn’t even look resigned. No, he looked _relieved_ and resolved.

 

And ravenous.

 

The next thing Miles knew, he was being borne to his bed by Benjy’s rangy-lean, but dense weight. His wrists were clasped bruising-tight and pinned to either side of his head, and his legs, of their own accord, wrapped around Benjy’s waist and hips, trying to keep him close and draw him even closer. Benjy, for his part, was grinding against Miles, hard and aggressive, and scenting Miles’ throat while moaning urgently.

 

“God, you smell so _perfect_ ,” he soon all but sobbed around a strange and somewhat hysterical laugh. He was even harder than he’d been minutes ago, hot and huge as he prodded at Miles’ aching balls despite their jeans and jammies, respectively. “So . . . fucking . . . _mine_.”

 

“Yesssss,” Miles hissed happily, arching up as best he could under his Benjy’s insistent weight and determined grinding. “Mark me, claim me . . . make me _yours, Alpha._ ”

 

“ _Oh, fuuuuuck_!” Benjy exclaimed, his body flattening Miles’ to the bed for most of a minute. Then Benjy was sitting them both up and pulling Miles onto his lap in a spread-wide straddle. He shrugged off his faded, red plaid over-shirt, then lifted his arms when Miles began to tug at the worn Henley underneath. When both shirts were mere memories, Benjy grinned as Miles ran trembling, admiring hands down his wide shoulders and strong, tapering chest. He was even hairier than Dad, which hadn’t been the case the last time Miles had seen Benjy shirtless.

 

Though, the last time Miles had seen Benjy shirtless, had been years ago. Before Benjy’d gotten his bachelor’s, even.

 

Miles sighed happily as taut, toned muscles, long and lean, rather than brawny, jumped under his touch. _Benjy’s_ hands, hot as brands, smoothed up and down Miles’ narrow back, even as he stared down at Miles’ wiry, hairless, flushed-mahogany chest, as if at some work of art.

 

“You’re so beautiful, Myze,” he, too, sighed, his eyes drifting up to meet Miles’. His expression was one of such adoring intensity, it was breathtaking and humbling. In the face of such an expression, the world didn’t so much start making sense, as its continuing lack of sense ceased to matter.

 

 _Everything_ ceased to matter beyond . . . _this_.

 

Smiling beatifically, Miles tipped his head back and bared his throat slightly, gracefully, but unambiguously. That flare-burn flickered in those hot, hazel eyes again, then Benjy was nuzzling Miles’ neck and throat, his possessive, appreciative palms sliding down to the small of Miles’ back, then the curve of his ass.

 

“Fuck,” Benjy mumbled again, bestowing nipping love-bites that were just on the sensual side of vicious, while Miles squirmed and moaned and shook in his arms.

 

He didn’t even notice Benjy scrabbling down the back of his baggy pajama bottoms until those twin, brand-hot hands were splayed on his ass. Miles let out a wavering, but triumphant cry when Benjy squeezed and kneaded then, as Miles spread his legs wider instinctively, sought the heated-slick entrance between them.

 

“ _Fuck, yes,_ ” Benjy breathed on Miles’ jugular as he circled Miles’ slippery, puffy-dilated hole with his first two fingers. “So good, sweetheart . . . you feel so good . . . dunno how I went _this long_ not knowing how amazing you _feel_. . . .”

 

“Yes, Alpha, _please_ ,” Miles begged, holding on tight to Benjy’s neck with desperation-strong arms. He held himself still, despite the driving instinct to impale himself on those exploratory fingers. If his Alpha wanted to explore, to tease and play and savor, then Miles would be still and compliant for as long as possible. “Need you in me, _pleeeeeeease_. . . .”

 

“Yeah . . . yeah, _anything_ , Myze . . . _whatever_ you need,” Benjy promised, pressing slowly, but steadily against Miles’ opening, then into it, to a chorus of soft, ecstatic cries. By the time Benjy’s fingers were halfway in, Miles was sobbing and shaking and stuttering _Benjys_ and _Alphas_. Benjy bit into the top of Miles’ shoulder, then at the junction between neck and collar, where his claim would hopefully go. _Couldn’t_ go soon enough. “ _Fuck_ , how’re you so _good_ for me, Myze? So wet and hot, sweet and _ready_? So _hungry_ for my knot? _How are you so perfect?_ ”

 

Miles’ response was a choked yell as Benjy’s fingers hilted in him at last . . . twisted, sought for—and found—his spot, then worked it with ruthless, no-holds-barred certainty.

 

So hard he was in agony, Miles ground against Benjy, needing his release—the first of many—but also knowing that he needed his Alpha’s knot to bring him to that point.

 

“ _Alpha_ ,” he husked out, breathless and low. Benjy straightened to look him in the eyes, but his fingers didn’t so much as slow. All Miles could feel was the electric, ice-fire _ZING!_ of each pleasure-pain jolt those fingers created. All he could smell was Benjy’s perfectly masculine, extra-Alpha, citrus-myrrh scent, and twined around it, his own scent, and the scent of his slick, like lavender-honey and vanilla. “ _Benjy_ , please . . . _hurry_.”

 

“I wanna taste you, Myze—I _need_ to taste you,” Benjy rumbled, just as breathless and low, using his leverage to pull Miles’ tighter against him. Then, before Miles could do more than whimper, Benjy had him back on the bed, prone and on his stomach. The pajama bottoms were ripped off in seconds and Benjy was shoving Miles’ legs wide open even as Miles started to do so at the behest of another instinctual nudge.

 

Benjy’s big hands settled on his ass and held his cheeks apart. For eternal moments, he merely stared, and with such intensity, Miles could feel the heat and need in his gaze. Then, he let out another choked-off gasp that became a tiny scream when a hot, harsh breath on his entrance turned into a slow, rasping lick.

 

“Holy fuck, you _taste_ . . . unh! _Mmm_ ,” Benjy moaned against Miles’ hole, sucking and licking, circling and darting his voracious way into Miles’ eager body. If not for Benjy’s restraining hands, Miles’ would surely have writhed and squirmed and quaked his way right off the bed.

 

Benjy continued to lick and suck, occasionally substituting his fingers for his tongue to tease Miles’ body into producing _more_ slick, of which he then greedily partook. Miles was adrift in tortuous pleasure like a small sloop on a purposeful tide.

 

“Oh . . . oh, fuck. _Fuck_.”

 

“Whaaah? Benjy?” Miles burbled belatedly when the licking and sucking stopped. He was barely cogent enough to register the realization in Benjy’s raspy tenor.

 

Benjy’s stubbly face pressed against his right cheek, followed by a tender kiss. “I . . . I’m knotting . . . _fast_. If we don’t stop now, I . . . might not be _able_ to later. And I don’t want . . . I _never_ want to hurt you, Myze. You’re _mine_ and I love you more than _anything_ ,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Miles to hear. “I don’t wanna hurt you, sweetheart.”

 

Levering himself up just enough to look over his shoulder, it was to see Benjy sitting up reluctantly. He was still wearing his old blue jeans, but his fly was open and his cock—huge, purply turgid, and shining with precome smeared from his absently stroking hand—was pointing straight up.

 

Near the base, his knot was already an intimidating and angry swelling that couldn’t _possibly_ fit inside Miles’ body. Not even a little.

 

But . . . the longer he stared at Benjy’s cock and its seemingly massive knot, the more Miles unaccountably _wanted_ it. Want it to break him open and lock their bodies together while nature did its best to create a new life that was part of _both_ of them.

 

“ _That’s_ gonna hurt me. No matter how careful we are—how slow you go, or how relaxed and stretched, dilated and slick I am—it’s gonna hurt. There’s no getting around that, Benjy. I’m gonna hurt and I’m probably gonna tear. Probably more than a _little_. Which means I’m gonna bleed,” Miles acknowledged in a strangely calm voice. Benjy nodded glumly, meeting Miles’ gaze for a few moments before his eyes drifted back to Miles’ waiting-twitching-throbbing entrance. “But that’s all part of it, isn’t it? Part of this whole cycle . . . of the heat and the _rut_?”

 

“Yeah,” Benjy agreed, soft and sad, ravenous and intent. “God, sweetheart, I’m gonna hurt you . . . maybe even _damage_ you . . . and part of me is on-board with that in a way I can’t explain. And I’m not sure I can control it, either. Not . . . not once I’m _in you_.”

 

For a few moments, Benjy’s hands, balled into fists, pressed to his temples as he squinched his eyes tight-shut. He shook his head several times, fast and in negation, rocking frantically. Through his own haze of desire, Miles began to worry. Started to shift and turn over, so he could sit up and wrap protective arms around his clearly troubled and anxious Alpha.

 

But Benjy suddenly inhaled, deep and shaking. Several times, as if orienting—or reorienting—himself. Then he stopped the rocking, the head-shaking, and the squinching. His eyes cracked open a bit, then widened and met Miles’ again, round and more than a little distracted. Ponderous, but _possessive_. His fists fell away from his temples and stopped being fists before they landed on his denim-clad thighs.

 

It wasn’t long before Benjy was closing his hand around his cock in a cruel grip, stroking slow and rough, and including the knot in his ungentle ministrations.

 

Shivering, Miles groaned, and helplessly arched his back in a way that made Benjy shiver, too. _Shudder_ , really, and stroke his cock and the growing knot harder and faster. His eyes dropped back to Miles’ ass and he licked his lips, as if to remind himself of Miles’ taste.

 

“I need you so bad, sweetheart,” he mumbled, soft and slightly slurred. “If you don’t want this . . . don’t wanna be _mine_ , please, tell me to leave _now_ , Myze, and I will. I’ll . . . just tell me to . . . to _stay away_ , and I will. Just like I've been doing for the past two years. Please? If you’re gonna change your mind, do it before I . . . before I _can’t stop_. Before you . . . _hate me._ ”

 

At the tiny, unsteady quaver in Benjy's low, but faltering voice, Miles didn’t even think . . . just followed his so far unerring instinct.

 

It was a bit of a struggle, getting to his hands and knees, but it became infinitely easier when Benjy’s steady, strong hands landed on his hips and assisted with the change in position.

 

“You're _my Benjy_. Always have been, always will be,” Miles promised, from the depths of his heart and soul. “I could never hate you. _Will never_ feel anything for you but love. I _love_ you, Benjamin Parker. And I _need you. Please._ ”

 

So saying, Miles canted his ass up in the air— _presented_ —feeling vulnerable and vaguely ridiculous, but not nearly as ridiculous as he would’ve felt even five hours ago. He bowed his back submissively, bracing himself on his forearms and lowering his left cheek to the pillow, but also angling his head a little to the left. To provide access to the most common spot for a claim-mark: between the right shoulder, collar bone, and neck.

 

“I _need_ you, _now_ , Alpha,” Miles whispered to his pillow. And: “ _Claim me_.”

 

For almost a minute, neither of them moved.

 

Miles shivered again from the chill of being naked, and bereft of his Alpha’s touch or warmth, and wondered if _Benjy_ had been the one to change his mind. To come to his senses. To realize he could do _so much better_.

 

Before the last of the shiver and the thought passed, there was a quick, rough rustle of discarded denim, and Miles was gasping as he suddenly had _all_ his Alpha’s warmth back and then some. As Benjy held him close, rutting against his ass without any sort of coordination or rhythm, his big hand clutching bruising-tight at Miles’ right hip.

 

And then . . . for the briefest of moments, Benjy was pulling away just a bit to line himself up to Miles’ opening, the uncut head of his cock slipping in precome and slick, before centering and beginning the steady, implacable push _in_.

 

For a long while, Miles couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his own heartbeat and pulse in his ears. Not his own grunts and gasps and groans. Not Benjy’s near-constant stream of filthy praise and pleas and promises.

 

Over his own heartbeat—and the white-noise sensation of cascading and escalating pleasure-pain-possession that was drowning him—there was nothing. Not even the deliciously obscene, slapping-squishing sounds of Benjy taking him hard and fast and without relief.

 

Miles heard nothing at all. . . .

 

Until the entire world froze around him, silent and breath-held . . . even his ecstatic heart and the fever-rush of blood in his veins. Benjy was panting soundlessly in Miles' ear, his big, thick cock seemingly core-deep—so hot and hard, Miles couldn’t even _think_ around it, and the totality of everything it meant and would mean forever after—but still poised and primed for _deeper_.

 

Then, sound returned to the world. For a moment, anyway. But Miles was almost instantly deaf to it again, except for his own agonized, breathless, _frightened_ screeches and sobs as Benjy held him still and close and tight. Held Miles immovably while working his knot forward and in without hesitation. And, when it was, somehow, all the way in, he barely paused before pulling back out, then repeating the process. He _continued_ to fuck Miles with lengthening, brutal strokes that felt as if they were meant to tear him two. He drove in deep and fast, including the knot, until Miles’ body didn’t merely pump out more slick, but also _gave completely_ in some sudden, but ultimate way that was worse than the tearing and bleeding that’d prefaced it.

 

Miles was sobbing when he came—long and intense and somehow perfect, for all that it was as much anguish as it was bliss . . . and even though he was prey to a great and terrible _unmaking_ that was even _more_ of a Hell for the fleeting-sweet taste of Heaven that leavened it—and beyond begging Benjy to _stop_ , though had he been able, he doubted he would have.

 

Because . . . this was what happened, right? What _had_ to happen to omegas? _Between_ omegas and their Alphas?

 

This was . . . _right_. Wasn’t it?

 

Or, it simply was what it _was_ , and what it _had been_ for time immemorial, never mind Miles’ silly, romantic notions and expectations.

 

By the time Benjy came, eternities later, Miles had collapsed to the bed, weeping and still in agony. By the time the knot was large enough to prevent Benjy from pulling out and continuing to fuck him, Miles simply laid under his determined Alpha’s heavier, frantic-buzzing body, and tried to keep himself from hyperventilating and maybe even passing out.

 

Benjy came in him again, hard and a lot, grunting something Miles didn’t even try to make out. His right hand was tight on Miles’ hip and his left was clamped on Miles’ wrist tight enough to prevent proper blood-flow. But Benjy was clearly beyond anything and everything that _wasn’t_ rocking and jostling inside Miles for every tiny bit of motion and depth the knot would allow.

 

He was so deep in his rut—in the taking and having and . . . breeding—that Miles idly wondered, with a calm born of near-complete devastation, if he’d _ever_ find his way out.

 

And if he’d even be the _same Benjy_ when he did.

 

Miles occasionally winced in the timeless span that followed, though the wincing was involuntary, like breathing and blinking. He even came again when Benjy bit down in the correct spot to make his claim, then reinforced that claim with determined gnawing and worrying. But even Benjy’s determined teeth gaining muscle-deep purchase was _nothing_ compared to having Benjy’s knot inside him—let alone having been fucked _enthusiastically_ with that knot.

 

So, Miles rode out the claim, the knot still inside him, and his own bewildering sense of relief and satisfaction at the continuing and agonizing evidence of his new, mated-and-claimed status. Of his _belonging_. And though his release was involuntary, also, Miles shook and shuddered and moaned his way through it because his body _knew_ what it needed. Knew what it would accept and what was required of it.

 

Knew, above and before all else, what _his Alpha_ needed of it.

 

When his knot had gone down enough to allow for something resembling thrusting, Benjy took advantage of that, once more driving himself as deep as he could get with sharp, short swivels of his hips, and aggressive grunt and growls.

 

He came a half-dozen more times, each release more pained-sounding than the last, until he finally sagged, half-limp and mostly insensate, on top of Miles. But not limp _in_ him . . . not just yet. Silence reigned for quite some time, though, and by the time it was broken, Miles’ face was dry of tears. He’d long-since screwed his eyes tight-shut as he sought the safety of his own internal and inviolate darkness.

 

“Myzzzzze, sweeeeeeetheart,” Benjy slurred-sighed into a sloppy kiss right on the bleeding-stinging claim-mark. He teased the teeth-indentations with a surprisingly delicate tip of tongue before drawing on the wound for a few moments. Then he huffed with utter contentment, pressing a tender kiss below Miles’ right ear. “Love you _soooooo_ muhhh- _unh_!”

 

Gasping, he then swore, groaned, came a final time—with a high, pained keen—and went _completely_ limp on top of Miles even before he stopped coming. His breathing was even and deep, and his still-spurting, half-hard cock and half-reduced knot were locked and lodged in Miles’ shell-shocked and exhausted body.

 

It wasn’t until much later, when the knot had gone down enough to allow Benjy to slip most of the way out of his body—along with what felt like a slow trickle of _at least_ a gallon of come—that Miles realized Benjy . . . _his Alpha . . ._ was still gripping his right hip possessively. His left hand still held onto Miles’, as well. Not by the wrist, but with their fingers linked tight together, like old-fashioned paramours.

 

Every so often, Benjy would squeeze Miles’ fingers reflexively tight, and he'd mumble and whimper in his sleep.

 

Miles didn’t try to free his fingers, nor did he squeeze Benjy’s back. He merely drew in a shaking, shallow breath, then fought and lost the battle not to cry himself to a thin, restless sleep.

 

TBC


	4. REDUX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s on the tin. And in the notes. Takes place a few hours after the events of the previous chapter. Miles has had his rude awakening. Now, it’s time for Benjy to have his. The question becomes . . . can they move forward beyond the destruction of their naïve fantasies about mating, and navigate the sometimes-harsh realities of their intense and demanding bond?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Parker-cest (though the Parkers in question aren’t related by blood). Unplanned heat and mating between main pairing. Mentions of awkward, rough, painful sex, attendant injuries, and the possibility of resulting mpreg. Altered mental states, due to heat/mating cycle, mentions of deteriorating mental health, and shock-trauma. Dissociation, confession, and rapprochement. Angst and redux.

 

By the time midnight rolled around, Miles had given up on trying to stay asleep.

 

Between the empty, core-deep ache of his body, the stinging of various tears and scratches, the dull throb of contusions and bruises, and the nightmares . . . sleep was a bad job he just wasn’t interested in holding.

 

Eventually, he’d shifted away from his Alpha’s warm body. Away from the long, possessive arm draped over his waist and the beginnings of a hard-on that’d never really wilted, but for just enough for Benjy’s cock to pull out painfully. Painful because of the burning slide of flesh from abused and torn flesh, and painful in the feelings of hollow vacancy and lonely chill when Benjy’d eventually rolled off _Miles’_ back, and onto his own on Miles’ bed.

 

After the worst of the lingering burn of reinjury had subsided, Miles had managed to sit up with painstaking slowness. He’d stared down at his knees for minutes or maybe hours, before noticing they were trembling . . . the muscles twitching. Under his feet, the cold of the wooden floor had been somehow a relief, compared to his near-feverish, relentlessly-cycling body.

 

His back, shoulders, neck, and head ached from exhaustion and tension, and his arms felt rubbery and weak. The sharp pain of his torn entrance—and, likely, deeper into his body for quite a ways—had dwindled into a dull ache, as well. One that came with rolling abdominal cramps and sporadic, but deep-seated twinges . . . twinges around the empty spaces within that longed for his Alpha’s cock and knot, even now.

 

Mostly, though, after however long he’d been sitting and . . . processing—or not—Miles felt as if he’d been anesthetized, physically and emotionally. He _felt_ his pains, physical and emotional, but academically, with only passing interest. He merely sat on the edge of his bed, braced on hands and arms that trembled, and stared out the night-dark window next to his dresser. He bore mute witness to, and clocked every feeling and sensation with detached observation.

 

He felt as if he was a spectator in his own heat . . . hovering a full five yards above his own body and its processes—its _needs_ —and just waiting for the whole mess to be _done_. And then, perhaps he could find a way to re-inhabit himself, somehow.

 

 _Somehow_.

 

In the soft yellow glow of his night-table lamp, his bedroom seemed so safe and soft-edged. So familiar and right. Miles, himself, felt as if he was none of _those_ things . . . nor anything at all.

 

So, he found it odd that he couldn’t seem to stem the steady, heavy flow of tears from his swollen eyes, even with all his trying. Eventually, he simply accepted his blurred-smeared vision as the new normal, since he hadn’t the reserves to temper the tears nor the energy to wipe his eyes constantly.

 

He simply drifted on the ebb-flow tide of his non-thoughts and non-emotions, noting impassively as some aches dulled and lessened, and some dulled and increased. Most notably, for that latter, the ache in his groin and in his ass.

 

He didn’t have to look down at his body—thankfully—to know that he was as hard as he’d ever been. Again. Had been getting that way from before he’d given up on sleep. He could tell from the change in his scent—from almost soothingly sweet, languid, and gentle . . . to sharp, urgent, and seductive—that it wouldn’t be much longer at all before his Alpha woke up in the throes of his rut, once more.

 

Indeed, it _wasn’t_ long before his Alpha’s scent started changing from sleepy-mellow and recumbent, to intense and dominant and _ready_.

 

Miles said nothing as the silence behind him was soon leavened with huffs and soft groans, grunts and slurred growls. Even though his body shook, both from fear and anticipation in near-equal measures, he simply accepted what was now inevitable.

 

His body knew its duty and Miles knew his.

 

“Myze-sweetheart? _Hmmmm_. . . .” his Alpha finally burbled, barely awake, but with his big, warm hand settling lightly on Miles’s knobby, bowed spine. The contact made Miles want to lean back into it, and flinch away, simultaneously. But he did neither—did nothing more than shiver delicately. Of their own accord, the tears redoubled their efforts to blind and dehydrate him completely.

 

At this rate, he’d be a moderately-sized pile of Miles-dust, come sunup.

 

Miles smiled absently, though it felt more like a wincing grimace. And his Alpha’s hand was stroking his back slowly, soothingly . . . then with pointed intent as he shifted into a more wakeful and aroused state.

 

“How come you’re so far ‘way, baby?” was asked around a huge, long yawn, and the back-stroking stuttered a bit, then resumed as with a hum of lazy contentment. “You smell _sooooo_ good . . . so _ready . . . unh_ , God, you’re so much more . . . _more_ than I ever could’ve imagined. An’ I want you _sooooo bad_. . . .”

 

Miles closed his eyes. He could hear the soft-slick _whist-whist_ of his Alpha stroking his own cock as his other hand kept up stroking Miles’ back. He could smell both their pheromones and sharpening, overwhelming scents, mingling and _merging_ again, in an aria of need and possession. Of impending completion.

 

He could feel his own body shaking and quaking with desire that felt sharp and violent, and etched too deeply into his atoms to ever be permanently slaked. And he knew that feeling for truth, because even as his body continued to ache and throb and twinge and hurt, the only thing that felt worse than his injuries was the fact that his Alpha wasn’t _already_ pinning him to the bed and _taking_ him. Knotting him. Reinforcing the claim and _breeding_ him.

 

Because that was the way it was. The way it had always been and always would be. It simply was what it was, had been, and would ever be. And _Miles_ had been a fool to think that the submission to their shared imperative and nature’s frantic, ungentle propagation of their genetic material would somehow be _better_ , with the right Alpha. Would somehow be nobler, sweeter, _meaningful_ . . . oh, he’d been a _fool_ to think it would be that way even with the _only_ Alpha he’d ever really wanted and the only one he’d ever belonged to. . . .

 

“Miles?” his Alpha asked, hesitant and worried, his hand slowing to a stop when a soft, despairing whimper fought its way from Miles’ tight, ticking throat. “Baby? What’s wrong? What’s—you smell like . . . tears and sadness and _fear_ . . . and—God, _baby_ , you smell like _blood_ and _pain_ —”

 

Before Miles knew it, he found himself on his back, indeed, but not pinned. No, as his Alpha loomed over him—keen and concerned, his eyes alert as they scanned Miles’ face and body—his hungry-wild-dominant scent was quickly becoming leavened with fear and shock.

 

“Oh, my God, _Myze . . . honey_. . . .” he breathed in a voice that was rumbling and shaking and breaking, one hand coming up to cover his mouth for a long moments. He shook his head in denial a few times, then reached out with his other hand to brush shaking fingers over several of Miles’ bruises, the most notable of which was on Miles’ right hip, in the stark shape of a large, livid, purple-red handprint.

 

Miles simply stared up at the familiar lines and angles of his Alpha’s handsome, proud face, and felt . . . nothing.

 

His Alpha shook his head again, his big, tremoring hand sliding over to the left, toward Miles’ pelvis and his aching, rigid, leaking cock. But he paused, then moved his hand down along Miles’ right thigh, his entire face set in an expression of shell-shocked dismay. Miles shuddered and spread his legs automatically, muffling a whimper at the renewed ache in his thigh muscles . . . at the once-again sharp sting of his torn and battered insides.

 

The ache of his own chasm-deep emptiness, and the brutal-sweet fulfillment of being taken and knotted so vigorously.

 

Of course. There was precious little his Alpha _wasn’t_ good at, last Miles had known. Breeding his omega would and should be no different. Shouldn’t. . . .

 

“Myze,” his Alpha murmured, strained and gruff, his hand sliding inward, to the soft skin of Miles’ inner thigh, leaving twitching-spazzing muscles in its wake. When Miles made a sound of shameless, wanton need and spread wider, arching his back, his Alpha frowned even deeper. But his gaze, when it met Miles’ briefly, was hot and hungry.

 

Then his Alpha shook his head fiercely, as if to clear it, took a shuddering breath, and placed his right hand on Miles’ left knee. Let it slide up and in, slow and light, as Miles writhed and moaned just as hungrily. Those hands each found a task, then: the right one fondling and squeezing Miles’ balls gently, the left one inching teasing fingers back along Miles’ perineum. Then between his come and slick-tacky cheeks. _Then_ pressing with testing firmness against Miles’ hole.

 

And even though Miles’ body no longer knew how to _flinch_ from hurts caused by its Alpha . . . neither of them were prepared for Miles’ soft, barely-stifled cry of pain and panic.

 

“Miles,” his Alpha exhaled, his low voice heavy and guilty, as if Atlas had shrugged the weight of the world onto his shoulders without the slightest warning. Miles’ eyes had already fluttered shut so tight that even the endless tears weren’t escaping. Just sharp, shallow breaths huffed out from and in through his nose.

 

His Alpha’s fingers slowly released their careful pressure on his entrance without even a small push in, and Miles whimpered, half-relieved and half-frustrated. _All mortified_ , in some dim, detached way. His face began to burn from the ferocity of his embarrassed flush, which felt so intense and deep, he was sure it showed up even on his dark skin.

 

“Oh, God,” his Alpha sighed, voice no longer breaking, but _broke_. “ _I did this_. I . . . you’re hurt and _bleeding_ — _frightened of me,_ because I . . . sweetheart, _please_ . . . I didn’t _realize_ , Myze. _Please_ believe me, I didn’t know I was hurting you so bad. If I’d _known_. . . .”

 

But there, his Alpha trailed off before telling a lie that neither of them would believe, or ever forgive him for.

 

For a while, there was just silence. One in which Miles couldn’t even hear his needy body’s demands, or his Alpha’s.

 

So, he opened his eyes warily . . . then blinked as if trying to dispel a hallucination. Then he was moaning again, startled and helpless as _color and feeling_ leached back into his world: a slow-bleed of dimension that Miles’ hadn’t even realized had so thoroughly fled hours prior.

 

But despite this return of depth and hue to his shaken world, Miles only had eyes for one thing. For his Alpha— _his Benjy_ —still kneeling like a penitent between Miles’ legs and sitting heavily on his heels. He was staring down at his hands as if he’d never seen them before, his face blank with numb horror.

 

The first two fingers of his left hand were smeared with his own come and Miles’ slick . . . and traces— _thin streaks_ of Miles’ blood, too.

 

Benjy’s hazel eyes were wide with shock and seemingly locked on that jarring sight.

 

Miles shuddered, feeling ashamed and suddenly weary. Color and feeling receded once again, like a cowed wave, and he just wanted this round of their rut—this entire mating-cycle—to be over, so he could sleep. So he could rediscover what it felt like to be _himself_ , rather than the heat-obsessed _animal_ who’d inhabited his being so completely.

 

“I told you there’d be blood,” he whispered, his voice the barest, rawest scrape of sound. Benjy shuddered, too, and his gaze shifted up. But Miles turned his head slightly, glancing away before Benjy’s devastated eyes could make contact. “I _said_ there’d be tearing _and_ blood. We both knew that, going in. Why are you crying, _now_ , Alpha?”

 

After a few moments, Benjy barked a somewhat hysterical laugh, bitter and unamused. “Why’re _you_ crying now, _omega_ , if you _knew_ it’d be like this?”

 

And, indeed, when Miles blinked in surprise, more tears rolled down his wet cheeks and his breathing hitched tellingly.

 

Darting a narrow-eyed glare at Benjy, who was watching him with eyes so soft and pleading and apologetic, Miles could barely stand to meet them for longer than a second, he shrugged. “I’m in heat. Hormones,” he said with flat dismissiveness. But Benjy’s brows shot up incredulously.

 

“You’re _in pain_. Because I . . . _hurt you_ and I didn’t try hard enough not to. Didn’t try like I _shoulda_ to make it _good_ for you. To _take care of you_ and make you . . . make you not regret letting me claim you.” Benjy lowered his troubled gaze to Miles’ abdomen. “You’re in pain because I turned out to be just another asshole Alpha so consumed with getting his knot wet and breeding you, that you become _my omega_ , rather than my _mate_ , _my_ Myze, and _my love_ . . . and all the care and tenderness that should go with those titles. And that’s _not_ the kind of treatment—the kind of _Alpha_ —that’s anywhere _near_ good enough for _you_. For _my Myze_.”

 

So surprised, his shame and weariness were tabled for the moment, Miles sighed. “Benjy . . . _Alpha_ —”

 

“ _Don’t call me that_. I don’t deserve that honorific. Nor _mate,_ nor _love_. I won’t deserve them unless and until I Alpha-up. Not that I expect you to give me a chance to, after what I’ve done,” Benjy laughed again, though it sounded like a sob and tears were running down his cheeks again. “This is _everything_ I was afraid of from two years ago. Why I left without saying good bye. Why I haven’t even spoken to you on the phone, since the rut-mania first started. I _knew_ that if I let myself, I’d ruin _everything_. I _always_ ruin everything.”

 

Frowning, Miles levered himself upright gingerly, bracing his sore body on arms that still felt rubbery. His detachment was, it turned out, as brittle as hanging frost, because it shattered as Benjy’s broad shoulders slumped in abject defeat, his face crumpling into a red, miserable mess. The world once more exploded into feeling and color and dimension. It found its center in the lost Alpha before it. The Alpha who’d become _Miles’,_ against all odds and in answer to wishes Miles’ had given up on so long ago, he’d told himself he’d forgotten them entirely. “Benjy, I—you _don’t_ ruin anything. You’re . . . you’re the _best. I’m_ the one who brought this down on us. It’s _my_ fault, all of this. Maybe you weren’t careful or controlled, but then . . . this was your first shared rut, right?”

 

“Yours, too, Myze. And I _wanted_ to make it beautiful for you. Make it _perfect_ and everything you deserve. Make it _all_ the things I’ve _always_ wanted to be the one to give you,” Benjy whispered, sniffling and hitching as he obviously fought not to sob. In that moment, he no longer seemed young and earnest, as always, but . . . ancient and empty. Worn-down. “No matter how much therapy and all the fancy, new meds they shoved down my throat, I _always knew_ that there was no curing me. No _fixing_ me. No making what I knew as DNA-deep _fact_ , anything _other_ than the utter truth of my entire existence. That you were _mine_. That if I waited long enough and was patient enough . . . if I was _good_ , then one day, I could be with you the way I’ve _needed to_ my whole life.”

 

“Benjy . . . _te amo_ mucho _cariño_. You’re _mi amor_ , my knight in shining armor, _mi esposo. My Benjy_. And I love you _forever_ ,” Miles crooned, half-slipping into the rusty Spanish of his early childhood which, because of his extreme rhotacism, he’d barely spoken even before the Parkers had adopted him when he was four.

 

 _Before the Parkers had adopted him when he was four_ , for many reasons which he _still_ chose to never think about if it could be helped, Miles had barely _ever_ spoken.

 

Now, still crooning loving nonsense, he shifted slowly, achily, until he could loop his arms around his Alpha, who sank and slumped into the embrace as if all his strength and fortitude had fled. As if Miles was the only soft place left in Benjy’s world, and Benjy was certain he didn’t deserve it. And just as unable to fight the instinct to cling to it.

 

Soon, Benjy’s _other_ fight, the fight not to sob, was lost in seconds, and Benjy’s arms wound desperate-tight around Miles’ waist. He pressed his hot, wet face to Miles' throat, inhaling deeply even as he shook and sobbed.

 

“I’m sorry, Myze,” he kept saying, clutching at Miles tighter and tighter. “I thought . . . after so long of living with the rut-mania and managing it—almost _regulating it_ with all the meds and therapy—that I could handle being around you again. At least for long enough to make sure you were safe and okay. Away from that predator, Osborn, _at last_.” Benjy snarled through teeth that sounded gritted. Then he snorted and sighed. “Only to subject you to an even _worse_ predator. _Fuck_!”

 

“You’re _not_ a predator, _querido_ ,” Miles murmured, stroking his Alpha’s spiky-messy bedhead.

 

“Not for lack of trying.”

 

“Benjy . . . you’re exaggerating and twisting the intent behind an experience which, yes, wasn’t ideal or safe or informed for either of us. We made some mistakes, yeah. Big ones. But _you_ , Benjamin Andrew Parker, are not a predator,” Miles said firmly and, so saying, acknowledged and accepted that as _rock-bottom fact_ , deep down where his core beliefs and understandings lived.

 

 _So saying_ , he felt a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t even noticed, despite its increasing constriction, slowly loosen. His heart and ribcage—his entire being expanded . . . upward and outward, filling and glowing with something as bright as it was warm. As it was all-encompassing.

 

As it was, at last, _certain_.

 

“I love you, Benjamin Parker. You are _my mate, my Alpha, and I love you_. I don’t _regret_ mating with you, only the circumstances surrounding it and that we were caught so unprepared and underinformed. But a series of accidents and . . . not being as informed and careful as we could’ve been _does not_ make you a predator. Or me a victim,” Miles added, steely and final, holding Benjy tighter as his own tears finally stopped.

 

“You _don’t know_ , Myze . . . what I . . . what I tried to _do_. . . .” Benjy shuddered and clutched even tighter. He felt hot and agitated in Miles’ embrace. “You don’t _know_ , sweetheart.”

 

“ _What_ don’t I know, butch?” Miles countered, using _Mom’s_ pet-name for Dad, just as Benjy had been calling him by all _Dad’s_ pet-names for Mom, most commonly, _sweetheart_. Benjy laughed a little, this time not so hysterical or broken. But it soon turned into a soft, sad whine.

 

“You don’t know . . . the entire reason why Mom and Dad hadda call the cops to get me restrained and to _Restful Acres_.” Benjy sat back just enough to look into Miles’ eyes, his own reddened and swollen and guilty. Shamed. _Surrendered_ , in a way that an Alpha’s gaze should _never_ be. He reached up and brushed his calloused fingertips along Miles’ cheek with such tender reverence, Miles shivered and moaned, and his body began pumping out pheromones and slick. Pumping out _allure and want_.

 

Benjy’s nostrils flared and his eyes fluttered shut for a few moments. “Miles, _sweetheart_ . . . you’re _so_ . . . what you _do_ to me . . . they shoulda _never_ let me out the hospital. _Never_. . . .”

 

Miles’ only answer was a soft whimper as he bared his throat after a brief and half-hearted battle with instinct. With _biology_. From the answering waft of Benjy’s pheromones and the clamp-clutch of those big, capable hands on his waist, that reply was most definitely heard. And when Benjy opened his eyes, they seemed dark and endless, tormented and tired . . . just like the rest of him.

 

“Even now, I can’t fight it . . . it’s like the past two years of self-control and curbing my worst impulses never even happened. I . . . Miles, honey, Mom and Dad called the cops on me—had me _committed_ —because . . . when my rut first started, it apexed in a matter of _hours_. By the end of the first day, I was . . . violent and disoriented. I kept trying to fight Dad and Ellie. And Evan and Doreen were so _scared_ for me . . . scared _of_ me, too . . . Mom sent them and Ellie to stay with Aunt MJ and Gwen that first evening, because I was so . . . unstable. Unpredictable. And that was just the first day. Halfway through the _second_ day . . . I’d stopped trying to provoke Dad and started trying to . . . to leave.”

 

Miles’ brow furrowed. “Leave? To go where?”

 

Benjy’s face colored then paled almost instantly, his gaze dropping. “To, ah . . . to challenge Osborn for your favor and . . . to claim you.” His brow also furrowing, Benjy sighed and shook his head once more, determinedly meeting Miles’ stunned, wide-eyed gaze again, but with a slight flinch. “No, I was gonna _kill_ him. For touching what was _mine_. For taking _my omega_. My _Myze_. . . .” he swallowed and sagged a bit in Miles’ arms. “I was gonna tear him apart with my bare hands. And Dad couldn’t stop me—I knocked him out cold. Mom, hadda go Special Ops on me just to slow me down. But even together, they couldn’t physically keep me from trying to . . . and they _tried_ to reason with me. _Dad_ did, anyway, even while Mom was calling the cops and holding one of his old hockey sticks in case . . . in case. But I couldn’t . . . I didn’t wanna even _allow_ myself to consider that you might actually _love_ Osborn and _want him_ more than . . . more than you loved and wanted _me_. I was gonna _make you_ see that I was the better Alpha. That you _needed_ my knot and claim and pups. I could show you how destined we were if I could just _get to you_. Only . . . my _plans_ for showing you were basically . . . what happened tonight, only . . . probably _even less_ fun. For you, anyway.”

 

And with that, Benjy’s eyes dropped again.

 

“And I wouldn’t have even _recognized_ that I was forcing myself on you . . . that I was . . . was _raping_ you. I would’ve done it and done it until the rut-mania let up or until you somehow got away. And I _might have_ realized, then. Once you’d _run from me_. _Might’ve_ regretted it, too. But I don’t know for sure. I was . . _. I am . . . sick_ , Miles. And that’s no excuse, no . . . pass on being responsible for my actions, it’s just . . . the reason why I’ve stayed away. I _never_ wanted to hurt you by leaving. The only thing I wanted _less_ was the way I’d have hurt you if I’d stayed. And even now, even after all this time and struggling and learning self-control . . . _even now_ , I _still hurt you_ while I was trying to love you.  I _only_ want to love you, and have _you love me_ and never be _sorry_ that you do. That’s _all_ I’ve _ever_ wanted and all I’ll ever _want_. Even though I’ve done nothing to deserve it— _have done_ , in fact, the exact _opposite_.”

 

Miles had no response to that, other than sporadic blinking. And that remained his only response for so long, Benjy finally risked a glance up at him, grim and obviously fearing the worst.

 

“Mom and Dad were doing what they _had_ to do to protect us both, but especially _you_ , Myze. I was . . . crazy. For a long time. Though my first therapist actually did manage to diagnose the mental disorder caused by my physical condition: Alpha-psychosis. Apparently, I’m a textbook example as far as symptoms go. Though the . . . intensity at which I’ve been known to experience them is . . . rather higher than anyone’s ever seen in recorded medical history,” he mumbled, his stubby-thick lashes shuttering his shining eyes for a few seconds, and his mouth twisting with rue and distaste. “As for the rut-mania . . . so far as my doctors, all nine million of them, have been able to tell, I’m not having a _series_ of ruts and manias, I’m . . . still experiencing the _first one_. Maybe . . . perpetually.”

 

Miles’ jaw dropped. “But . . . _Benjy_ , that’s. . . .”

 

“Crazy? A completely _fucked-up_ trick for nature to play on an Alpha and any unlucky omega he sets his sights on?” Benjy snorted, closing his eyes tight for a minute. When he opened them, more tears leaked out and, flabbergasted, Miles could only continue to gape in astonishment . . . and horror. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, according to the Parker medical history, at least as far back as Great-Grandpa James, down to Grandpa Richard, to Dad, and now, I guess to me—though, thankfully, not Ellie, so far, but we won’t know until she has her first rut—there’s been a tendency for Parker Alphas to be . . . _extra_. Like, really, _really_ Alpha-brained, well-above societal averages. And unless Ellie turns into freaking _Godzilla_ , during her rut, _I_ seem to be the shining pinnacle of that extra-ness. At least until. . . .”

 

And Benjy looked down, leaning back just enough to slide his hand between them, where it settled on Miles’ abdomen. His touch was heavy and sad, but loving and gentle, too. And when Miles shivered, Benjy’s face fell into lines that made him look older, less boyish, and so very worn-out.

 

Miles’ heart ached for him. Filled to brimming and overflowing with love and adoration, compassion and a fierce protectiveness that felt as if it rivaled anything _any_ Alpha had ever felt toward an omega.

 

“My Benjy,” he murmured, reaching up to cup Benjy’s wet, left cheek in the palm of his hand. The Alpha took a deep, shuddering breath and didn’t look up. “My Alpha. My mate.”

 

“I’m _so sorry_ , Miles. I love you so much . . . and because of that, I do _stupid_ things. Even when I’m trying my hardest to avoid doing _horrible_ things. And now . . . you’re tied to me. Bound to me in a way you can never be free of.” Shaking his head, Benjy’s hand on Miles’ abdomen pressed just a bit more, the pressure warm and right, somehow. “Even if we let the claim wither, and don’t reinforce it further with rutting or marking, or even proximity . . . there’s still a good chance you’re already carrying our pup.”

 

Miles smirked, trembling and barely-there. “ _Someone_ sure thinks a lot of his virility. Conceited, idiot-genius _jerk-butt. Everyone_ knows the first round of rutting doesn’t result in pregnancy. It usually happens during the apex. And as . . . _intense_ as tonight was . . . I don’t think we’ve hit our apex, yet. Probably not for another day or so.”

 

Benjy nodded glumly. “In that case . . . in that case, we should, ah, probably try to get to a clinic or emergency room before we . . . can’t control ourselves anymore. Get you checked out and patched up, _both of us_ on emergency suppressors—and we stay the _hell_ away from each other at least until your heat passes and the claim withers. And then—”

 

“We’re doing no such thing, Benjamin Parker,” Miles informed his Alpha firmly, leaning in to kiss the upturned tip of Benjy’s long, high-bridged nose. Benjy wriggled it and his whole, expressive face in surprise, blinking at Miles with such vulnerable, confused eyes, Miles’ heart hurt even more.

 

And he was even _more certain_.

 

“Get up,” he commanded his Alpha, pleased when Benjy didn’t protest, merely blinked, then got to his feet slowly, as if he, too, was achy. He was long, lean, and pale, but for his big, purple-red cock, which was, despite everything, beginning to knot visibly.

 

He was . . . gorgeous. Strong and noble and possessed of a strength of character Miles’ felt lucky to finally know about and witness.

 

 _Miles’_ Alpha was _the Alpha_. And his omega’s _only_.

 

Still smiling, Miles surveyed his slump-shouldered mate for a few seconds with open admiration, then held out his hands to a clearly puzzled Benjy. “Help me up, butch. I’m a bit unsteady.”

 

Benjy obeyed without question, assisting Miles up and holding him carefully at arms’ length, while Miles waited for his shaky legs to do their job.

 

“Eh, fuck it, we haven’t got that much time,” he decided a minute later, after glaring impatiently at his still-trembling legs. Then he grinned up at Benjy, who was staring him with intent, but miserable focus.

 

“Time for what?” he asked without much interest or hope. “We _really_ should dial nine-one-one, Miles. . . .”

 

“It’s _Myze_ , Benjy. Or _sweetheart_. Or _baby_. Or _honey_ . . . I _really_ like when you call me _Myze-honey_. And we’re _not_ dialing nine-one-one, either. The only place we’re going is my shower. _Ugh_ , stop standing _so far away_ , you giant Sequoia. Lemme lean on you before I faceplant on the floor!”

 

Once more obeying, Benjy pulled Miles close, until Miles’ was tucked against his side, and held him up with one strong arm winding about Miles’ waist. Looking _up_ into Benjy’s wary-confused face, Miles felt a brief flash of jealousy that he was only _barely_ higher than Benjy’s shoulder. If Benjy had taken after Dad instead of Mom, height-wise—as with everything else—he and Miles might only have two inches between them, rather than just over five.

 

But, if wishes were horses. . . .

 

“Why’re we going to your shower?” Benjy mumbled reluctantly, letting Miles lead them bathroom-ward with ginger steps and the occasional hiss-wince. “ _Jesus_ , sweetheart, I’m so, _so_ —”

 

“Well-endowed? Yep. Kinda sussed that out for myself, thanks. I may require a wheelchair, or at least crutches by the time this rut is over,” Miles grumbled, then snorted as they stepped into the chilly hallway. Then the dark bathroom, a few steps beyond that. Benjy automatically flicked the light switch with his free hand, and Miles squinted and blinked in the fluorescent light. But he didn’t pause his forward momentum until he’d reached his shower stall. He pushed the glass door open then looked up at Benjy, his grin gentling back into a reassuring smile. “And we’re hitting the showers because we’re covered in sweat, spooj, and blood. Not exactly romantic souvenirs or reminders of our first time together, huh? So, we’re gonna take the fastest shower on record, _change my bed linens_ —because we’re _not_ gonna conceive our first pup in a crusty-gross patch of said blood and spooj—then try this rut-thing again with some more prep _and_ some more lube. Because short of the apex of my cycle, I don’t think my body’s gonna make near-enough slick for me to take you without tearing, butch.”

 

Benjy moaned pathetically as he helped Miles into the narrow-ish shower stall. Miles leaned against the cool, sea-blue wall-tiles for a moment, before turning to look at Benjy. He still looked _ridiculously_ sexy and magnetic, despite also looking so woebegone and lost.

 

Miles placed his right hand over the spot where his heart beat fast and hard and _resounding_ for his Alpha . . . _his Alpha_ , standing so near, yet so far away.

 

It was time and past to close that distance permanently, he decided. And, decided, he held his left hand out to his Alpha.

 

“Something tells me that . . . that maybe the second time’s gonna be the charm, Benjy. In _all_ the ways that matter,” he said with every ounce of conviction in his being, when the tense, expectant silence between them had drawn out. Benjy swallowed once, audibly, and stared at Miles’ hand as if at undeserved salvation. “And if it’s _not_ , well . . . practice _does_ make perfect, or so I’ve heard.”

 

“ _Please_ ,” Benjy said, swallowing again, and shuddering as he met Miles’ steady gaze once more. “I love you _so much_ , Myze-honey, but . . . please, don’t . . . don’t _look at me_ like I’m _not_ a fucking _monster_. Don’t _reward me_ for surrendering my control and ethics to my baser instincts. And at the cost of _your_ pain and trust and love. Don’t let me _hurt you again_. . . .”

 

“Benjy,” Miles said, kind, but stern, still holding out his hand. Then, “ _Alpha_.” And at that, Benjy’s eyes dropped to Miles’ hand once more, all yearning and fear and shame. His body listed toward the hand and toward Miles as tears dripped from his face to the floor. “I think that after the past several hours and several _years_ , we _both_ deserve a do-over. Nice, hot shower to get us clean, then nice, fresh sheets for us to have our do-over on, and then . . . sleep. I _really_ wanna fall asleep in your arms, Benjy. I have since I was sixteen.”

 

Benjy winced and shook his head.

 

“I _don’t_ want to hurt you anymore,” he enunciated, his voice creaking and cracking and strained. Miles’ smile was encouraging, even though Benjy was still staring at the outstretched hand as if at a convincing mirage. “Not ever again.”

 

“If you don’t wanna hurt me anymore . . . then _don’t_ , Benjy,” he said, soft and simple. This time, when Benjy risked a look up at Miles’ face, he blinked and squinted as if trying to read very tiny print. Miles shrugged. “Just . . . don’t. Get in the shower before your knot gets too much bigger, and help me get clean so you can dirty me right up again.”

 

Benjy shuddered hard, but his intent, scrutinizing gaze never faltered. Neither did Miles’.

 

Though, Miles _did_ blush and giggle and _beam_ , when Benjy took his hand, linking and twining their fingers _tight_ , then let himself be tugged closer. Then closer, still . . . stepping over the riser and into the shower. Into his omega’s warm, welcoming arms and waiting, claiming kiss.

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> How'm I doin', so far, huh? Huh?
> 
> [beetle on the Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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